DESK SPACE

MARC DI SAVERIO

2011-04-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

--Marc Di Saverio reading "Orphaestus" at his book launch at the Black Swan in December

DESK SPACE: Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

MARC DI SAVERIO: Hailing from Hamilton, Ontario, I'm a McMaster English-History student, poet, essayist, translator (of English, French and Japanese poetry) and the author of the Manifesto of Mortarism, which partially appeared in Maisonneuve (Innovation/Progress Issue). My translations, poems, art, and theory-related work have appeared in Maisonneuve, The Dalhousie Review, Toronto Quarterly, Modern Haiku, Misunderstandings Magazine (wherein an interview is forthcoming), Magnapoets, Frog Pond (haiku journal), and Moonset (where I was featured poet). I am also the language editor of the great Serbian haijin Slavko Sedlar’s SUCHNESS 2 and SUCHNESS 3, an extraordinary honor because I have always admired and adored his haiku. In December, 2010, I launched my chapbook Sanatorium Songs with Cactus Press. The book will be reviewed by Jacob McArthur Mooney in the Northern Poetry Review, and Michael Lista will be publishing an article on my work in the "Afterword" of the National Post.

Moreover, I am a Psychiatry-enthusiast, mental health activist, chronic thinker, amateur composer of classical music, and an aesthete.

I also consider myself an inventor. I have invented a new form of poetry/photography, and also a method enabling one to read objects as musical notes. The new form of poetry is called Verso D’Oggetti, or Verse of Objects, or objectverse, which involves reading syllables as objects. For instance, a haiku of objects would involve 17 objects. See for yourself below.

You may want to see these two prior interviews, one with Curtis Dunlap of Tobacco Road, and the other with Robert B. Wilson of Simply Haiku.

DS: When did you start writing or publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

MdS: I started writing Sanatorium Songs, my first chapbook, while in hospital, around 2006.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

MdS: I write in many different places, but my two favorite places are my writing shed (complete with skylight, couch, desk, library, and heating and air conditioning). I also love working at my girlfriend Diane’s house, where she has a lovely writing table in her dining room.

I also enjoy working at the Mountain Brow, especially at the the top of Princess Falls, aka “the waterfall”, which is just off of the Bruce Trails, on Scenic Drive.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

MdS Where I work depends on how I am feeling. If I am in a manic state I prefer composing along on my walking tours through the city, or in the parks and the forests. When I am in a depressive state I prefer writing in the shed, where I feel most comfortable and relaxed.

DS What was the last book you read?

MdS The last book I read was The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. I learned a lotabout free verse and the long line from Jeffers, an extraordinary, expansive poet.

DS what are you working on now?

MdS Now I am working on Orphaestus, my debut full-length book of poetry, and the Daughter of God, my first novel. I am also working with Cassandra Cronenberg and Ryan Preston on feature film projects.

2011-04-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

NATHANIEL G. MOORE (3 OR SO MINUTES OF BOOTLEGGED FUN)

2011-02-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

THIS WEEK

2011-02-08T10:40:00.001-08:00

CARLETON WILSON

2010-12-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

Carleton Wilson for DESK SPACE: I recorded the following poems while at St. Michael's Hospital for IV antibiotics to help a lung infection. Please forgive the quality of voice on the recording.

Carleton Wilson reads Ligature:

Listen!

Carleton Wilson reads Rumi:

Listen!

Carleton Wilson reads Coughing Blood:

Listen!

ROBIN SPANO READS "CLARE'S SNOWBOARDING LESSON" FOR DESK SPACE

2010-12-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

MATT RADER READS "THE SECOND BORN" FOR DESK SPACE

2010-12-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

RACHEL LEBOWITZ

2010-12-18T18:20:00.000-08:00

Various things completely unrelated to writing that somehow end up on my desk, such as my passport, jewellery polishing cloth, blank birthday cards that I never got around to sending. Also a whole bunch of history books.

The cat hogging my chair as usual.

Rachel Lebowitz for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

RACHEL LEBOWITZ Mother, writer. First book, Hannus, was shortlisted for a BC book prize and the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. Second book, Anything but Hank! (co-written by Zach Wells and illustrated by Eric Orchard) is apparently “the best book ever!” according to a kid who heard us read from it last year. Third book is in progress.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

RL In grade 1 maybe? By the age of 8, I had ditched my early dreams of owning a bakery in favour of being a writer. And I wrote lots of poems then. Apparently, love is good to everyone, even if you weigh a tonne. Who knew?

I published my first book, Hannus, with Pedlar Press in 2006. Hoping to publish the next book in 2012 or so but I have to finish it first.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

RL My writing process is two-fold. Because the work I do (especially for my latest project) is so research-based, I tend to just get comfortable and do a lot of research in the livingroom. I read lots and use lots of sticky notes. Then eventually I wander over to my desk (in the corner of the dining room) and type up those notes and do more research online and write.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

RL I work at home, alone, a couple days a week while my son is at daycare. I can't focus on my writing in public spaces. Also, I always read my writing out loud while I'm working and feel self-conscious if anyone else is around. Rhythm is very important to me and that's the best way for me to hear it (or lack thereof).

I used to write on paper but I can't do it anymore. For one thing, I do so much research that I need the internet to do quick searches on something – often right in the middle of writing. It could be an image search or the line from some poet that I need to check, or a map of England or facts about cockroaches or coral reefs. I can't imagine writing without google. For another, I'm a really slow and picky writer. It's picking up now, but it's not unusual for me to write one poem a year. However, those pieces do tend to come out fairly finished – I edit as I go along. I can't write another sentence if I know there are problems with the first one – and seeing all those scratched out lines on paper just depresses me and makes me feel like I'm not going anywhere. So the delete and enter keys are my friends!

DS What is the last book you read (or what are you reading)?

RL Orlando! I just started a book club and we're focusing on various classic works we've never got around to reading. It's pretty exciting. Sometimes I feel like all Canadian writers do is read each other's work or the next big thing. I want to get away from that for awhile. Also, these days I'm reading lots of nursery rhymes to my son and I'm finding them pretty inspiring for my own work.

DS What are you working on now?

RL Cottonopolis – a book of prose poems about the Industrial Revolution, specifically the cotton industry, mostly focusing on Manchester. Slavery, empire, child labour, Luddites, American civil war, etc. It's pretty huge and terrifying and exhilarating.

2010-12-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

ROSALYNN TYO

2010-06-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

ROSALYNN TYO Rosalynn Tyo, Managing Editor of The New Quarterly: Canadian Writers & Writing, Blogger-in-chief for the literary type, writer (some day) of magazine articles and personal essays.

DS When did you become interested in literature and the publishing industry?

RT I can't really remember a time when I didn't love books. My mother is a great reader; she taught me to read before I went to kindergarten, which meant, on the first day anyway, I was the smartest kid in class. I think my fate was sealed sometime in between recess and snack. But my memories of this period are pretty vague.

DS Where do you work/edit (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

RT Most of my day time hours are in The New Quarterly office, but I like to blog and work on my own projects, such as they are, in my living room, on the couch. When I have the option, I like to layout issues of TNQ here in my living room too, because here I'm not distracted by other things on my desk: the piles of paper, sticky notes, messages, etc that are equally urgent. From an ergonomics standpoint, this couch is a nightmare, but that just gives me all the justification I need to fidget, stretch, walk to the coffee maker and back. This room gets lots of natural light, and the window faces the street. I always sit facing the window. In fact, this photo just reminded to rotate my couch cushions; if you look closely, you can actually see the indentation left from my last session.

DS Why do you work where you do?

RT I like sitting here because I find that when I write, I spend about as much time idly staring as I do typing, and my street is just busy enough to accommodate this habit. There's never enough going on to actually distract me, but there's always something to look at when I happen to look up. My neighbour's tree. My crazy neighbour's cat. Rollerbladers. Kids going to school. You know, suburbia. And if I'm not looking out the window, I'm staring at the bookshelf in the other picture. That bookshelf was made for my grandmother, was an important fixture in my childhood bedrooms (we moved a lot), and the top shelf houses my 'current all-time favorites'; I find it both comforting and inspiring to look at.

DS What is the last book you read (or what are you reading)?

RT I signed up for the Great Canadian Book Challenge for the first time this year, and the way I chose to personalize it was to limit my thirteen books to ones that have been given or lent to me by friends, family or complete strangers. Book number eight was Galore by Michael Crummey, lent to me by my mom (we both loved it); I'm now in the middle of February by Lisa Moore. It's breaking my heart. A friend cautioned me that it would ruin future books for me because it's so good; I think he might be right.

DS What are you working on now?

RT Trying to actually finish one of the many essays I've started so that I may send it out and thus finally understand how the many submitters to TNQ really feel!

Coming up

2010-05-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

on DESK SPACE: Rosalynn Tyo

CHRISTOPHER MORRIS

2010-04-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

Christopher Morris for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

CHRISTOPHER MORRIS I am an actor, director and playwright living in Toronto and am the artistic director of the theatre company Human Cargo.

DS When did you start becoming interested in acting or get your first role?

CM My first official play was playing some kind of grave digging person in grade three in a version of A Christmas Carol at my elementary school in Markham, Ontario called Kateri Tekakwitha. My first "real" play was in grade nine in a collective abouhigh school called The Highschool Zone, I played a nerd and a tough guy.

DS Where do you come up with ideas for your characters?

CM I always get ideas about my character from the script. Sometimes I feel like I get too "outer" and looking for effect if I look outside the script.

DS Why do you work where you do?

CM On a smaller scale, I work in my small farm house in Toronto. It's a perfect kind of oasis from the city, at times I feel like I don't live in a city because it's tucked away off the street, but great because I can get right into the middle of the city whenever I want. Over the last few years I have been creating work with my company in places outside Toronto (some of them being - Nunavut, Iceland, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Republic of Georgia, Petawawa, Yellowknife). Working in places outside my culture help keep me off-balance in a way and make me try to find new ways in, or new ways to create things.

DS What was the last play or film you watched?

CM The last film I watched was Polytechnique, the last play I watched was Cloud Nine.

DS What are you working on now?

CM I am working as an actor on an extremely dirty adaptation of Racine's Andromache, and organising upcoming workshops for Human Cargo. One is called The Runner and is about ZAKA (I'm writing and acting in this), the other is called Petawawa and is about how the war in Afghanistan affects the families of Canadian, Pakistani, Afghan and Taliban soldiers (I'm directing this one).

2010-03-22T09:27:00.001-07:00

Coming up

2010-03-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

on DESK SPACE: Christopher Morris

ADRIENNE WEISS

2010-02-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

Adrienne Weiss for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

ADRIENNE WEISS Adrienne Weiss lives in Parkdale, teaches college students how to write, and then tries to write stuff herself.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book?

AW First attempt at writing a story—a murder mystery—was in 1983. First attempt to get published—in OWL Magazine—was in 1985. First book: 2001. Last published poem: 2008.

DS Where do you write?

AW In bed while Coast to Coast is on the radio, at the desk in the picture, while students write exams, whenever I am held up in a waiting room waiting to do my taxes….

DS Why do you work where you do?

AW That desk in the picture is in a small room surrounded by paper and pictures and funny paraphernalia that somehow or other creates a comfortable yet disturbing space. That helps with the writing.

DS What are you working on now?

AW Still working on a manuscript of poetry now eight or nine years old. Dreaming of writing a lengthy essay that outlines the brilliance of Stevie Nicks’ Bella Donna.

2010-02-28T10:44:00.001-08:00

Coming up

2010-02-15T14:34:00.000-08:00

on DESK SPACE: Adrienne Weiss

2010-02-05T08:54:00.001-08:00

RICHARD CROUSE

2010-01-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

Richard Crouse for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

RICHARD CROUSE I’m a purveyor of opinions, some wanted, some not.

DS When did you start writing or publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

RC From the time I was quite young I always wanted to look at the book shelf and see my name on the spine of a book. I just had no clue how to make that happen. I wrote (an unpublished) book about my favorite band, The Rolling Stones, when I was fourteen or so. But I had to wait twenty more years to actually write one that went to the printers. My best advice for anyone who has their first book coming out is: remember everything about the process because it’s never the same or as fun, again. I recall when the author’s copies of my first book arrived by courier. Twenty-five copies of the book in a big brown cardboard box with the title and my name on the side. I was excited but let the box sit unopened for several hours because I knew when I opened it, although it was going to be cool to see the book, that part of my dream would be over.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

RC I write in my home office, a sun drenched room cluttered with books, DVDs, nic nacs, and things to keep my brain active. It’s close to the kitchen so there is a never ending supply of caffeine at arm’s reach and it has a big couch for, as the Friendly Giant would say, “two to curl up in,” although most of the time it is just me, sitting, avoiding writing.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

RC Virtually everything I’ve ever written that has been published has been written on the desk you see in the photo. Or, I should say, what’s left of the desk in the photo. The only part that remains of the original desk is the top—the rest of it slowly disintegrated over the years of being moved here and there, but I refuse to let go of the top. It has been the support for my original Underwood typewriter, a series of electric typewriters and now a series of computers and lap tops. It is pock marked and scarred, has had drinks spilled on it and was once treated as a chew toy by a Doberman but is always there for me… and for that reason as long as I write, wherever the desk is will be my favorite place to be.

DS What was the last film you watched/ book you read?

RC I see anywhere from 5 to 10 movies a week, so by the time you post this I’ll have seen 20 more movies, so I’ll pass on that question, but I have been reading a lot lately. I don’t read a lot of fiction but Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem is pretty fabulous and a book called Sway: A Novel by Zachary Lazar has been highly recommended to me.

DS What are you working on now?

RC I always have a number of projects brewing simultaneously. There’s a new TV show that is close to getting funded, a half finished novel about a singer who kills his drummer to get publicity for his band’s new record, the syndicated radio show and a dozen or so writing gigs. Other than that I’m just trying to make sense of all the words in my head by putting them in the right order.

2010-01-27T22:40:00.000-08:00

Coming up

2010-01-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

Next week on DESK SPACE: Richard Crouse

2010-01-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

JONATHAN BALL

2010-01-07T12:03:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Ball for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

JONATHAN BALL Jonathan Ball: writer, teacher, and wannabe polymath.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

JB I always wrote but got serious about it in 1999. Ten years passed, and I published my first book of poetry, Ex Machina (BookThug, 2009). Ex Machina is a long poem written according the conceit that the book is hijacking the neural machinery of the reader to produce poems, and it meditates on the interconnectedness of poetry, books, machines, and humans. My next book (also poetry) will be Clockfire (Coach House, 2010). Clockfire consists of prose poems which describe plays that would be impossible to produce: a play in which you destroy the sun, plays in which you murder the audience, a play which requires magical powers or absurd physics, and so forth.

DS Where do you write?

JB I write at the desk pictured here. I took the picture in the middle of a writing session (on my coffee break). Twice a week, I write in my office at the University of Winnipeg --- my University of Manitoba office has no computer (I am a sessional instructor at both universities). I may make notes elsewhere, but I try not to write unless I am at the desk.

DS Why do you work where you do?

JB My handwriting is too messy to read so I never work longhand, and I don't have a laptop. Also, I need to confine my writing to a particular small area that I can walk away from --- if I can't physically walk away from the work, then I go crazy feeling compelled/obligated to work constantly. There are also tax reasons to have a specific area of the apartment isolated as a home office. I listen to music while I write, heavy metal for the most part, and my computer doubles as my stereo (you can see the subwoofer on the floor).

DS What are you working on now?

JB The third draft of The Crow Murders, a novel. Not wanting to say too much about a book still in progress, I will reproduce my standard line: "The Crow Murders draws on magic realism and postmodernism to tell a story steeped in gothicism, where the book itself is a monster that seeks the death of its characters." Always working on other things, but this novel is my top writing priority.

2010-01-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

Coming up

2009-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

on DESK SPACE: Jonathan Ball

ALICE BURDICK

2009-12-17T15:33:00.000-08:00

About some things on or near my desk:

The handprints are Hazel's, along with the paper poppy. Directly above her art is a painting by Drew Klassen of a tv showing snow. Below Hazel's handprints is an etching by Susan Fothergill. The baby swinging away is Arthur, 3 months old.

Alice Burdick for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

ALICE BURDICK I'm Alice Burdick, poet and mother, human working on stuff. Author of Flutter (Mansfield Press, 2008) and Simple Master (Pedlar Press, 2002), as well as a whole slew of chapbooks etc.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

AB I started writing at a very early age, little rhyming poems and then, later, a play about a ballerina. My Dad is a poet (I call him a secret poet) and translator, and used to speak to me in Old Norse. My first book, Voice of Interpreter, was published in 1991 through The Eternal Network (I was co-editor with Victor Coleman). My first perfectbound book was Simple Master, published in 2002. Flutter came out in 2008.

DS Where do write (at your desk/outside/in bed)

AB I write poems in little or large notebooks or sketchbooks wherever I may be sitting or lying down. Later they go into the old computer and then I edit em.

DS Why you work where you do (at you desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think or in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

AB I like my desk, but I can only work at it really these days after my daughter Hazel is asleep or when she is at daycare. What I like about writing by hand into notebooks is that it can happen anywhere and I don't have to use any electricity to do so. We're in an old house and eventually my office will be in the attic, in a dormer window, but for now my station is set up in the dining room. You can see a hutch with a cake bell on top of it right behind the desk.

DS What are you working on now?

AB I'm working sporadically on a new bunch of poems. I don't usually write to make a cohesive manuscript, but I've got an idea in my head right now to write something tentatively titled 'Baby everything'. I am not afraid of the domestic or my children appearing in my writing.

2009-12-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

Coming up

2009-12-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

Next week on DESK SPACE: Alice Burdick

GUY MADDIN

2009-11-12T18:33:00.000-08:00

Guy Maddin for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

GUY MADDIN Guy Maddin, largely sedentary filmmaker, fulminator and frequent napper. I should've included a shot of my couch!

DS When did you start becoming interested in film or make your first film?

GM I decided to make a film in 1982, when I was 26, but because of my dronelike sloth didn't get around to it till I was 30.

DS Where do you write or come up with ideas for your work (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

GM Many alleged ideas comes as I write -- I'm sure that's the same for most of your correspondents -- so right there at my desk. But I find strolls unusually productive; walking makes for melancholic, almost graveyard-spiraling, thoughts. I also take a lot of long dry-haired swims in the pool with my friend Steve Snyder. Over an hour the two of us will discuss how to massage our heartbreakingly strange family lives into our fictions. So, equal parts desktime, dogwalk and poolspell.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space or you can listen to music/ outside /in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

GM At the desk because I'm a slave to it. I can answer emails, the phone, do laundry and prepare meals from this central location. I resent the amount of time I spend in this chair, but I haven't mastered the modern teenage girl's ability to write while lying on my stomach in bed while sipping soda from a straw so I am doomed to this sedentary life and the fat ass it's given me.

DS What was the last film you watched?

GM The Old Dark House, just last night. Somehow I'd never seen this picture before even though it features many of the thesps with whom I'm obsessed: Karloff, Laughton,Thesiger, Massey and, now, Gloria Stuart!

DS What are you working on now?

GM I'm trying to write the script for my next feature, a thing called Keyhole, or the Naked Ghost, but the late fall weather is so fine I'm going crazy with euphorically sad yearnings. Can't do a thing! Weather of all sorts creates enervating euphorias in me, something I both cherish and resent.

2009-11-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

Coming up

2009-11-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Guy Maddin

BRIAN PALMU

2009-10-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Brian Palmu for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

BRIAN PALMU Brian Palmu, gambler, poetry book reviewer.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first review/poem/book (or when are you publishing your next)?

BP My first prose fiction stylings began at 8 or 9, sports reporting humour; I composed and proffered a quaintly racy ballad sans refrain to a high school sweet heart (and other) throb; my second poetic entry rudely sprouted in 1979, and, undaunted, I’ve continued to write bad verse ever since. My first reviews were published by Canadian Notes & Queries earlier this year.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

BP At the kitchen table, in bed, at the beach, in my head upon awakening.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

BP My work entails cat-on-mouse concentration on the computer for six plus hours a day, so, when writing, I prefer another location so’s to become better acquainted with the rest of the house.

DS What are you working on now?

BP Two essays of political satire; three poetry book reviews for Canadian Notes & Queries; an arrangement of twenty or so of my own verses, voiced as a CD in collaboration with Sacha Fassaert’s jazz guitar; and organization of a reading in Gibsons, BC, Nov 14, for poets Peter Trower, Heather Haley, and Lyle Neff.

2009-10-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-10-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Brian Palmu

2009-10-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

ALEXANDRA LEGGAT

2009-10-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

Alexandra Leggat for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

ALEXANDRA LEGGAT I'm a writer and a book addict. My newest collection of short stories is called Animal and I just finished reading a series of graphic novels called the Colour of Water, The Colour of Earth and the Colour of Heaven by the Korean manhwa author Kim Dong Hwa - I highly recommend it. It's beautiful, on every level, which is why I wanted to tell you all.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

AL I started writing when I was six. I remember the first poem I wrote and where I wrote it. It's all I did then, and now, I guess. My first book was published when I was in my late twenties - I think.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

AL I'm writing freehand right now, so I have the luxury of writing anywhere, anytime. However, I get down to serious business, pull a story or book or article all together, in the sanctity of my loft, my office. No, its more than an office - my sanctuary.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

AL I love working in my loft at my big white harvest table that doubles as a desk (a very heavy piece of furniture that my dad and I transported on top of my old '67 Monte Carlo from an auction way the hell out in Fort Erie to my home) because it's spacious and harmonious. I'm up in the sky here, amongst the tips of the trees, like being in a tree house. The room is bright and airy. I feel detached from everything - domesticity, humans, all the stuff that can weigh me down when I'm trying to escape into my work, my psyche. I can escape here, clattering away on my computer at my big old harvest table in my loft in the sky - truly escape. And I watch people without them knowing I'm watching, like a hawk, a falcon - you know, all those crazy raptors.

DS What are you working on now?

AL I'm writing my new book, which I started the second Animal came out. A nice surprise, to be able to embark on something new right away - and happily.

2009-10-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-09-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Alexandra Leggat

DESK SPACE WILL BE BACK SOON

2009-09-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

LAURA FILICE

2009-09-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Laura Filice for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (bio, one liner)?

LAURA FILICE Tainted painter

DS When did you start becoming interested in art, produce your first work (or when are you displaying work/commissioned to produce work)?

LF I found my passion at a young age, creating something out of nothing and later moved on to crayons, pencils and chalk. I was in middle school when I found my love… paint!

I started off like a typical kid with impressionist art, but discovered my true tainted nature in my teens. My bedroom walls were my canvass, much to my mother's dismay and my ever-changing mural of graffiti art grew with me. Later on, in the mid 90’s, I started painting on canvass and worked with a reputable local hippie artist that taught me everything there is to know about oils, realism and acid trips.

I developed a talent and ran with it for years - from sketching cartoon characters to painting intricate canvasses. I began selling artwork via word of mouth in 2000. Throughout the years I’ve displayed my work in many local exhibits, galleries and silent auctions.

DS Where do you work (at your desk/outside/in a studio)?

LF I have a home studio, which is well equipped, but my art often trails into other rooms in the house. In my space there’s a computer desk, which operates both PC and Mac platforms (currently, I am teaching myself how to use Illustrator and Photoshop). This space is where I research and brainstorm ideas, to later execute into works of art. My space is also my showroom; on the walls is a collection of my recent works.

In addition, I have been working in the area of project coordination and management for the last decade. I worked at a graphic art and web design boutique shop as the Project Manager over the last year but recently parted ways to find a new and stable endeavor…

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

LF I like to work from home because no matter what time of day, it is always conveniently located in the next room making it easy to create (and I’m lazy and like the fact that I don’t have to travel far).

DS What are you working on now?

LF Right now, I am working on 3 Munny’s (various sizes) of which will be displayed at an upcoming Lost Marbles show in September (Ottawa).

2009-09-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-08-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

Next week on DESK SPACE: Laura Filice

ALEX GOOD

2009-08-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

Alex Good for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

ALEX GOOD "Not to know me argues yourselves unknown."

DS When did you start writing?

AG I started regular reviewing in 1997. Created a website shortly thereafter. Back before these things were so popular. Nowadays, jeezis, any punk with attitude . . .

Oh well. I suppose they're all pigs of my sow.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

AG I make notes while I read on whatever I happen to be using as a bookmark. I mostly read in bed, or (elsewhere) as near to the horizontal as I can get. Later I try and stitch things together at my desk. I have two desks. The first is upstairs and I mainly use it for doing business-related stuff. Try not to turn green with envy over my big effing pile of Canadian Tire money. I also have an office downstairs in what used to be a guest bedroom (hence the awesome wallpaper). This is where I have the computer set up, so I guess it's where I do most of my writing.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

AG I live on a farm, kind of off the beaten track, so it's always quiet (unless a train is going by). Working at the computer is easiest because then I can just e-mail or upload whatever it is I'm doing when I'm finished.

DS What are you working on now?

AG More reviews. Helping out editorially at Canadian Notes and Queries. I've had requests from a few different publishers for a book (or books), but so far haven't had the time to get much done on them. Criticism has only ever been a hobby for me. But hopefully in the next year or so I'll be able to get a couple of things together.

2009-08-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-08-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Alex Good

IAN LETOURNEAU

2009-08-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ian LeTourneau for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

IAN LETOURNEAU Ian LeTourneau is a transplanted Maritimer currently living in Athabasca, Alberta, which is about 150 kms north of Edmonton. His poems have been published in many magazines across Canada, including The Malahat Review, Arc, The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review and Event. In 2006 Gaspereau Press published a chapbook of poems, Defining Range, and in 2008 Thistledown Press published Terminal Moraine, a full-length collection.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

IL I started writing in junior high, like most writers I suppose, but only seriously in my mid-twenties or so. I think it helped to have good teachers who impressed on me the need to read, read and read, especially early stuff. I still find the poetry of the Renaissance and Elizabethan periods some of my favourite—Wyatt, Sidney, Marlowe, etc.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

IL Mostly in the black Ikea chair (pictured in the corner of my office). Sometimes I’ll sit at the desk, but I get too distracted by the birds and other wildlife in the back yard. There’s a small river not too far behind our house, so there’s lots of activity. Deer are frequent visitors, but there have been moose hanging out for about a week at a time. Every once in a while a coyote will venture into the yard, and once I saw a grey wolf. And I didn’t see it, but a bear ate all our compost (a neighbor down the street saw the bear that same morning).

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

IL Because my office is the only private space I have in the house.

DS What are you working on now?

IL Finding time to write! But seriously I’m just starting to write new poems for my second collection, trying to fine-tune some short stories I’ve been working on forever, and occasionally writing on my blog, ianletourneau.ca.

2009-08-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-08-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Ian LeTourneau

2009-08-05T13:12:00.000-07:00

STEVEN W. BEATTIE

2009-07-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

STEVEN W. BEATTIE Steven W. Beattie, an intrepid Toronto-based writer, blogger, and literary critic, who spends his days (and some of his evenings) masquerading as the mild-mannered review editor for Quill & Quire magazine.

DS When did you start writing?

SWB Well, my first poem, called “Snow Is Like,” was written in senior kindergarten, but I think that would properly be classified as juvenilia. I’ve been writing literary criticism for the past six years or so. I started writing for the now-defunct Books in Canada, then branched out to places like Q&Q, the Edmonton Journal, the Vancouver Sun, and Canadian Notes and Queries.

In 2006 I also launched a narcissistic little online side-project – a litblog called That Shakespeherian Rag – largely because I like to hear myself talk, and the only thing I feel well-versed enough to talk about is books. The blog seems to have taken on a life of its own, though, and has gone through several incarnations (including its latest this past May, when I inadvertently napalmed the whole site while trying to update my blogging software). It’s basically a place for me to spout off about CanLit, the book biz, and literature in general. In its newest incarnation, I also changed the name to That Shakespearean Rag, since there seemed to be a fair bit of confusion around T.S. Eliot’s idiosyncratic spelling. Never let it be said that I’m not a populist at heart.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

SWB Most of my writing is done at my desk; most of my reading is done off site.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

SWB I write at my desk because no one gives me dirty looks about the bottle of Jim Beam that I keep by my elbow at all times, and I can deck myself out like Charles Bukowski in my boxers and a wife-beater undershirt.

That, and I have access to my library. Much of my writing process involves tearing through reference books, old novels I haven’t read in years, and other idiosyncratic stuff on my bookshelves. There’s a sense of security in knowing that all that stuff’s at hand, which makes it feel less like I’m working without a safety net.

If I were writing fiction, I could see maybe wanting to change locations, just to shake things up a bit. I’ve always been partial to writing in pubs, although the prose gets less articulate with each successive drink.

DS What are you working on now?

SWB A proof of Einstein’s theory of relativity. That, and some more criticism. There may be some fiction in my future, but that’s a bit further down the road. Right now I’m concentrating on what I do best: annoying people in the Canadian literary world.

2009-07-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-07-29T06:20:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Steven W. Beattie

DON SHARE

2009-07-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

Here’s some of what’s actually on the desk: Paul Blackburn, Jack Spicer, Robin Blaser, Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound, Thomas Traherne, a Milton dictionary, W.S. Graham, Robert Burton, Delmore Schwartz, Samuel Johnson, Blake, Auden, Jules Supervielle, Janet Frame, Walter Benjamin’s “archives,” Lamb’s essays, tiny volumes of Thoreau & Marcus Aurelius, Michael Hofmann, Basil Bunting, compact OED, dictionary of similes (!).

RR spikes from Memphis, cheap reproduction of New York Public Library clock, bit of the wall from a Boston subway tunnel (Red Line – Harvard Square), bowl I made when I was 7, picture of place in Denmark where I lived as a kid, photo my dad took in NYC, cotton ball from Memphis, photo of famous ghostly poet. Wires.

Don Share for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

DON SHARE Don Share is Senior Editor of Poetry magazine. He has been Poetry Editor of Harvard Review and Partisan Review, Editor of Literary Imagination, and Curator of Poetry at Harvard. His books include Squandermania (Salt Publishing), Union (Zoo Press), The Traumatophile (Scantily Clad Press), and Seneca in English (Penguin Classics); forthcoming are a critical edition of Basil Bunting¹s poems (Faber and Faber) and Bunting¹s Persia (Flood Editions). His translations of Miguel Hernández, collected in I Have Lots of Heart (Bloodaxe Books) were awarded the Times Literary Supplement Translation Prize, the Premio Valle Inclán Prize, and the PEN/New England Discovery Award.

DS When did you start writing?

DON SHARE My fifth grade teacher - to punish me for doodling rather than taking notes on his lecture about volcanoes - smacked me on the crown of the head with the stone in his bulky class ring, exclaiming "One day, Don is going to be a GREAT WRITER." The gauntlet... almost literally... was laid down. Pete Townshend had his nose for motivation; I had Mr. Kramer.

DS Where do you write?

DON SHARE I write - and read - mostly on public transportation, which is where I spend almost all of my quality time. My desk (which is actually an old table), as you can see, is specifically designed to facilitate reading... and inhibit writing.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet
space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

DON SHARE I work on the train because... well, because I have to.

DESK SPACE What are you working on now?

DON SHARE I'm working on a long poem about Heath Ledger which is dedicated to Kent Johnson - neither of whom I have ever met. Since that's a complete disaster, I'm also working on the preface to a book coming soon from Flood Editions called Bunting's Persia.

2009-07-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-07-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Friday on DESK SPACE: Don Share

DIRTY DONNY GILLIES

2009-07-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

Native Canadian and now San Francisco staple 'Dirty' Donny Gillies' early fascination with Cartoons, comic books and model kits lead directly to Donny receding into his own self-created world of monsters and hot rods.

His unconventional approach to the art world along with a blast of natural talent has landed him lucrative jobs with Fender guitars, Vans apparel, Dunlop guitar picks and Bell motor cycle helmets, not to mention vinyl toy company Kid Robot and sticker apparel label Poster Pop. Donny's art has also been featured in countless magazines including Juxtapoz, International tattoo art and Metal hammer.

Donny has also done extensive work for San Francisco Metalheads Metallica as well as Sweden's The Hellacopters.

More of his work can be viewed here.

'Dirty' Donny Gillies for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE When did you start becoming interested in art or produce your first work of art?

DIRTY DONNY GILLIES I have been interested in art since I could hold a pencil.

I started getting jobs in the late 80's and early 90's doing flyer's for local puck bands and that lead me into sign painting and chalkboard's for bars and restaurants. In the mid 90's I started doing record covers for out of town bands and that's when the ball started rolling out of control.

DS Where do you work (at your desk/outside/in a studio)?

DDG I had a studio on Haight St. for about 3 years and when the lease ran out I decided to start working from home again. My wife Oriana and I have a nice space here in SF and I also have a big garage witch is handy for larger projects.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

DDG I have a perfect size room, set up in 3 sections, light/drafting table for illustration, computer table and flat file for storage.
Again the garage serves it's purpose for pinstriping, woodwork and larger commissions, plus messing around with my '69 Satellite, my other love.

DS What are you working on now?

DDG Just finished a guitar pic set for Dunlop. I'm doing a one of a kind pinball machine for Metallica right now with my friends Wade Krause and Tanio Klyce.

2009-07-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-07-06T09:21:00.001-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Dirty Donny Gillies

2009-07-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

RAY HSU

2009-06-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ray Hsu for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

RAY HSU I'm a postdoc in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. I received my PhD in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My book of poems, Anthropy, got the Gerald Lampert award, and I have over thirty journals to thank for taking over a hundred poems of mine. I taught for a few years in a US prison, where I formed the Prison Writing Workshop with a group of incarcerated writers.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

RH I started writing Choose Your Own Adventures in second grade, but didn't start poetry until undergrad. I put out my first book in 2004 and my next is due spring 2010.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

RH I usually write in cafes (can't get the accent on this keyboard).

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

RH I work in cafes because I live osmotically off the buzz of folks brainstorming around me.

DS What are you working on now?

RH I'm working at Gene's, a cafe where Kingsway meets Main, in Vancouver. The leaves are undulating in the sun.

2009-06-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-06-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Ray Hsu

MISS ME

2009-06-17T21:26:00.000-07:00

DESK SPACE will be back next week...

PATRICK RAWLEY

2009-06-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

Patrick Rawley for DESK SPACE

Hey, Kids! It's Patrick Rawley, star of stage, page, screen, radio and now the Internet! Tell us, when did you start writing? Well, I was a poor child, full of rage. It was then I decided that I would be a samurai. We couldn't afford a sword, what with my dad's golf addiction so I had to use words instead. Where is it I write? Usually at the coffee table on my smart little laptop. My "desk" is an abomination/ horizontal filing cabinet. What am I working on?
Two novellas, graphic novels without pictures, really, very hush-hush and experimental. I'm developing a screenplay with director Greg Machula. I 'write' stand-up routines that one has to sit down for.

This is not a picture of my desk but of my filthy assistants, Miss Tessmacher and Yelena.

2009-06-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-06-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Patrick Rawley

IAN WILLIAMS

2009-06-04T16:53:00.000-07:00

Ian Williams for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

IAN WILLIAMS Ian Williams is a poet, fiction writer, and professor (the sequence rotates depending on the audience).

DS When did you start writing or publish your first book?

IW Can’t remember a time when I was illiterate, but in terms of writing writing, or what the big dogs call [finger quotes] creative writing [end finger quotes], that started in grade 6, then I turned pro [cough] years later with the scheduled publications of You Know Who You Are (poems, Wolsak and Wynn, 2010) and Not Anyone’s Anything (fiction, Freehand, 2011).

DS Where do you write?

IW I write on my hand; meta that, in my pocket on a tiny steno; meta that, on a laptop that has the battery lifespan of a goldfish and overheats; meta that, in morning sun and silence; meta that, between Ontario and Massachusetts.

DS Why do you work where you do?

IW I think most writers have a touch of the Emily Dickinson anxiety that revs up in public, the self-consciousness that is the flip side of sensitivity. For that reason I prefer to write at home, and I do go whole days holed up at home. I also prefer to write in the morning before the contamination of other voices set in. These are ideal weather conditions, but umbrellas and toques come out when life gets busy.

DS What are you working on now?

IW As usual, I’m swinging between poetry and fiction, editing-wise and writing-wise. These days I’m editing You Know Who You Are and Not Anyone’s Anything. Once those’re done I’ll turn to working on the macdaddy project, a novel. To say more than that now would jinx it.

2009-06-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-06-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Ian Williams

ROB TAYLOR

2009-05-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

Rob Taylor for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

ROB TAYLOR Hey, I’m Rob Taylor! I write poetry in my very yellow basement suite in Vancouver, and dream of one day being a backup power forward on the Chinese National Basketball Team. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on starting ahead of Yi Jianlin. I’m not crazy!

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

RT I started writing in 2003. A couple chapbooks since then, most recently Child of Saturday, but no books. I am working on a manuscript, though. I’ve been doing that for far too long.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

RT Yes. All of the above. These days, mostly in a small notebook while riding the bus, back left or right corner, whichever is available.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

RT I write wherever I find myself, and I happen to be spending a disproportionate amount of my time on the bus these days. I’m on the Skytrain quite a bit, too. That’s quieter (runs on magnets!), and therefore better for poetic contemplation, but the rides are shorter. Because of this most train rides end in haiku, and occasionally a limerick (saucy days).

DS What are you working on now?

RT Well, there’s that whole manuscript thing.

And I’m pretty determined to get Heritage Minister James Moore to run one of my poems in his constituency newsletter. My new limerick (Thank you, Skytrain!) opens: “There was a young man from Port Moody / Whose waistline declared him a foody.” Fingers crossed!

I also run One Ghana, One Voice, Ghana’s first online poetry mag, which keeps me pretty busy.

Most importantly, I’m working on a new project: Literary Laundry… Literaundrature! With at least three sites out there exploring writers’ desks, I figured spin-offs would be inevitable. So I’m getting in there first!

Sure, you’ve seen your favourite author’s desk. You’ve studied the drawer where he stores his pencil, the wastebasket where she tosses her hopeless first drafts. But where does he store his pencil, if you know what I mean? What does she unbutton before she drops her real stinkers?

“I’ve read Penny Dreadful three times, I know all about Shannon Stewart’s computer monitor, but I’ve never seen an assortment of her rumpled blouses piled in a hamper. Can I really call myself a fan?” To me, these are the kinds of questions any real lit nerd must ask in this day and age.

I’ve been a fan of Desk Space for quite a while. Yours is by far the finest of all desk photo sites (suck on that, Writers’ Rooms!), so I am very honoured to have this opportunity to launch Literaundrature here. I hope that you will come to see it as the Mork and Mindy to your Happy Days (or, for the kids out there, the Private Practice to your Grey’s Anatomy).

This first edition of Literaundrature is a bit of a cross-over (like when McDreamy operated on Addison’s brother’s brain tumour) – a couple standard laundry shots, and then my desk space from my laundry’s perspective. Left sock first, then right. As a special bonus, my desk from the perspective of my left big toe.

2009-05-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-05-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Rob Taylor

DENNIS E. BOLEN

2009-05-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Dennis E. Bolen for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

DENNIS E. BOLEN Dennis E. Bolen, notorious black humourist.

DS When?

DB Been at it since publishing a poem anonymously in my senior year high school annual—thus launching the past forty years of desperate scribbling.

DS Where?

DB At desk, always at computer (not shown in photo).

DS Why?

DB It is a room of my own.

DS What?

DB An irreverent history of crime in British Columbia. It’s fiction.

2009-05-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-05-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Dennis E. Bolen

STEVE MARKLE

2009-05-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

I like to write in crowded spaces. Last night I jotted down some ideas at the Dresden in Los Angeles, shown here.

Steve Markle for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE When did you start becoming interested in film or when did you make your first film?

STEVE MARKLE I made my first short film at age ten. Used stop motion animation to bring a shoe to life. Called the film "Shoe Business".

DS Where do you write or come up with ideas for your work (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

SM I move from one spot to another. A few hours at a diner, then to a coffee shop, then a hotel lobby. If there are no cute girls, I'll move to the next location.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

SM I prefer working in a crowded space. The din of the room helps me concentrate on my work. I hate silence.

DS What are you working on now?

SM I've got a few T V and film projects in the works. I can't tell you about them because I don't want you stealing my killer ideas.

2009-05-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-05-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Steve Markle

SEAN DIXON

2009-05-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

Sean Dixon for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

SEAN DIXON Sean Dixon, etc.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

SD I wrote my first play in 1989 while working the nightshift at the Toronto General Hospital Radiology Department, purging files. It was produced a year later and I’m still proud of it. My playwright career has been up and down since then. I had a minor Toronto hit in 1995 with a play called The Painting, about a priapic man who worked in a cheese shop, and another in 2003 with a play called Billy Nothin’, described as an existentialist cowboy metamorphoses.

First novel was published two years ago with Coach House Press --The Girls Who Saw Everything -- about several women in a highly self-regarding book club whose latest reading project entangles them in serious world events and the search for a missing boy.

A few months after that, I published the first book in a YA trilogy about a brother/sister pair of peacenik Vikings who are destined to face each other on opposites sides of Ragnarok. The first of these was called The Feathered Cloak. The second, out this August, is called The Winter Drey.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

SD I’m sitting in Alternative Grounds Coffee Shop on Roncesvalles right now. There’s a corner table here that I like because it features a little hidden side shelf which gives the table more space than it seems. Very appealing characteristic for the middle child in a large family.

At home I either write in the office/guest room in front of a large window, or, when there’s a guest, up in the third floor bedroom in front of a smaller window. None of it is ideal because I can’t see the action on the street below due to an overhanging roof, and also because I like to be surrounded by my library when I write. I used to have a desk that was tucked into a shelf unit, creating the impression of a cave of books that I sat inside, with a side view of a window overlooking a back parking lot where I used to witness the most insane domestic quarrels.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

SD I work at the coffee shop to escape my computer and the internet, although it just so happens that I’m here right now with both.

DS What are you working on now?

SD I’m in the early draft stages of a book about a woman who decides to embark on a vendetta despite the fact that she’s not temperamentally suited to the task. It’s serious though — she’s trying to take action against a man who killed her lover and ruined her life. At the moment I’m thinking of calling it The Doppelgangers.

2009-05-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-05-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Sean Dixon

MISS ME

2009-04-28T19:16:00.001-07:00

DESK SPACE will be back next week

JASON GURIEL

2009-04-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

Jason Guriel for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (one-liner or a bio)?

JASON GURIEL Jason Guriel is the recipient of the Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry. His poems have recently appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Poetry London (UK), and The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008. His second collection of poems is Pure Product (Véhicule Press, 2009). He lives in Toronto.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

JG The first book came out in 2006. The new one, Pure Product (Véhicule Press), should be out soon.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

JG More and more, I compose poems in my head, as I walk to places. They get written down in a notebook, usually at a coffee shop – who am I kidding, at Starbucks. And I’m embarrassed, too, to admit that I like a nice Moleskine, an indulgence to be sure. It’s the sort of notebook (I suspect) that is purchased by people who like the idea of writing more than the activity itself. Still, if you’re serous about filling the Moleskine, it’s a nice thing to fill, a smooth ride, a properly adult luxury. I’m sure I sound awful, and well-gentrified, but you asked.

I rewrite every draft of every poem longhand – even if I’m just changing a single word. A final version isn’t typed out until it’s ready to be sent out, so the time I spend at an actual desk is kind of perfunctory, a last step. The rare time I go straight to a Word.doc, I always feel bad about it. And the poem never winds up being very good – or as good as it could’ve been.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space; outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

JG I’m not being precious about the walking thing (I’m no big fan of the Romantics, that’s for sure). I just don’t drive, is all, so I’ve got the time to work in my head. And I think it’s good for the poem, actually, to live between the ears for awhile. We have to suffer so much bad poetry; we should be at least a little reluctant to commit our own shaky attempts to paper (let alone laptop!). Who do we think we are, etc.? If the poem gets remembered, bully for it.

Once the poem is down in its Moleskine, the rewriting of every new draft in longhand puts the poem through its paces. The poem doesn’t have the chance to become some passive, inert thing, locked in its Word.doc, only to be occasionally revisited, prodded, tweaked. Every time the poem is rewritten, longhand, it gets recreated. It has to re-justify itself. (When we revise onscreen, however, we tend not to retype the whole poem; we just fiddle with the bit we want to revise.) Anyway, as a result of all of this rewriting, any remaining errors or awkward bits – not solved when the poem was riding around between my ears – will hopefully surface.

And I rewrite in public spaces – Starbucks, yes, but public transportation, too, even bars – because that’s where I find my spare moments. That said, I’m certainly not trying to get strangers to approach me, like those lonely types in taverns, who make a great show of doodling in their sketchbooks, hoping perhaps they’ll attract some attention. I just get better poems this way, and the work passes the time while I’m going somewhere or waiting for someone. It takes the pressure off the home front, too. (I gather some writers – those poor novelists, anyway – often have to lug themselves to their desks, which is no way to live; a desk ought to be a joyous space, for the checking of E-mail or Web pages like this one.)

DS What are you working on now?

JG I’m working on some reviews for Poetry magazine and CNQ, as well as the first instalment of what will be a regular-ish column for Contemporary Poetry Review. I’ve also been blogging for Harriet, the blog of the Poetry Foundation.

(photos by DESK SPACE)

2009-04-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-04-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Jason Guriel

ADAM HUGHES

2009-04-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

Adam Hughes for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

ADAM HUGHES My name is Adam, and I’m from Peterborough, Ontario. I moved to Ottawa in 1998, but then left for about a year and a half to live in Dubai and England where I worked as a bartender. I caught chlamydia in one of those countries, but I don’t know which one. In the summer of 2000 I moved back to Ottawa, where I successfully cured the dose, and I’ve been here ever since (minus a few vacations). I work as a graphic designer, flash designer, and more recently, a motion graphics/visual effects artist, under the moniker Mad Anvil.

DS When did you start becoming interested in art, produce your first work (or when are you displaying work/commissioned to produce work)?

AH I had always been interested in various forms of art. Be it audio, visual or movement. As a child in the 80’s and 90’s I was into hip hop, breakdancing, and graffiti, which has lasted until this day. Although finding good hip hop has been hard for the past 10 years or so, I don’t’ dance anymore, and the only graffiti I ever really did was on paper. I could never get the hang of using spray-paint. I’m into many different kinds of music these days, but I digress. I first started to think I could make a living as a graphic designer around 2003, after somehow being appointed “the guy who makes posters and flyers” for a bar I was working at. I had already learned the ins and outs of the Flash platform, which along with getting better in Photoshop made for a pretty good set of skills. As for the first website I ever made, it’s no longer online (thank fuck). So after 4-5 years of doing flash micro-sites and making loads of posters and flyers, my portfolio ended up getting me work with an agency. I now work with them full-time, and do freelance work on the side. I also live with my beautiful girlfriend Laura, who is a talented painter.

DS Where do you work (at your desk/outside/in a studio)?

AH Most of the work I do is at a desk with a retardedly fast PC (sorry mac ~~cultists~~ users). At my day job I share a studio with 3 other people, and I have an office at home. The video production stuff requires shooting on-location.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

AH Well, I can’t really explain why I work at a desk. There’s no other choice really. Although I will say that my day job is pretty lax about how to dress. I’m glad that I don’t have to get all dolled-up just to sit in front of monitors for 8 hours a day. I also like working in my office at home because I can do so in my underwear, while getting slightly inebriated, chain smoking and taking extended Call of Duty breaks. Soon I’ll have another desk, in another location, which will be dedicated strictly to motion graphics and video post production. My buddy Luke and I are starting a small ~~hobby~~ studio called Projecto. It’s located about a block from where I live. Keep an eye out for it. I’ll probably have to wear clothes there.

DS What are you working on now?

AH At the day job, I’m just starting a motion graphics piece for a rather large corporate entity, using mainly After Effects. On the freelance side, I’m working on a music video titled Kontrol for a friend (Lady Precise) in BC, a tricked-out Wordpress site, my Show Reel

and a handful of flyers and posters for various shows. I’m always fucking busy, but that’s the way I like it.

2009-04-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-04-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Adam Hughes

MATTHEW TIERNEY

2009-04-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Matthew Tierney for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

MATTHEW TIERNEY Poet. Leafs fan. Guinness lover. Poker player.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

MT My second book, The Hayflick Limit, just came out this spring with Coach House Books.

DS Where do you write?

MT At my desk. I look out on the heart of the heart of Toronto, specifically the fire escape of the office building next door. Behind it and above is the slimmest skyscraper in North America…I think. I must’ve read that somewhere.

Sometimes I lug my laptop three feet away so I can work in my reading chair. But mostly I stick to my perch while the world gets busy below.

We’re on the 12th floor and get a sliver of the Yonge and King intersection, where the red neon “Sleep Country” sign mocks me during my occasional insomniac wanderings.

DS Why do you work where you do?

MT I like to feel plugged in. There’s plenty of ambient noise during the day. The sirens flare up frequently, and the King streetcar’s rumble is periodic. Subliminal? Maybe it’s become so. Once I’m in the zone, I’m in the zone.

In short, I’ve always been a sucker for cities. The crush of humanity and all that. Individual stories playing themselves out in the background while I clatter away on the keyboard.

DESK SPACE

2009-04-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

Is experiencing technical difficulties! If we are not back tomorrow we will post on Monday.

2009-04-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-04-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Matthew Tierney

SINA QUEYRAS

2009-04-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

Sina Queyras for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

SINA QUERYAS Professional strumpet, poet, educator, one who opines.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

SQ I wrote for a long, long, long time, in many various locations before publishing my first book, Slip, in 2001.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

SQ I write wherever I can: train, subway, kitchen table, bed, libraries, anywhere but cafes or restaurants which stopped being interesting places to work many years ago.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

SQ Winter in Canada has made working in bed more appealing but now I have a sofa/bed in my office so I'm all set. My commute from Brooklyn to Rutgers was very productive though, and led to Expressway, my latest book of poetry. Commuting is good if you're not driving, but times need to be long enough to settle into work. If the trip is too short (as my current commute to Concordia is) or too fragmented (as my commute in Calgary was last year), it just becomes irritating. Driving commutes are obviously not ideal for the environment, but good places to think if not write.

I love libraries of all kinds. The New York Public Library was a favorite place to work, as was the library at Haverford, Bobst Library at NYU is great. The Bibliothèque here in Montreal is fabulous, but given the weather I am often in my office at home.

DS What are you working on now?

SQ Putting together a volume of essays and blog posts from Lemon Hound. It's called Unleashed, and will appear in September thanks to BookThug.

2009-04-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

Coming up

2009-04-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Sina Queyras

SHAUN SMITH

2009-03-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Shaun Smith for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a witty one-liner or a bio)?

SHAUN SMITH Shaun Smith YA novelist & journalist.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

SS I’ve been writing since high school, almost 30 years now, but professionally only since 1996. My first novel—Snakes & Ladders—was published in January 2009.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

SS On occasion I scribble by hand in a notebook, but only when I am working out story ideas. That usually takes place in a big comfy chair or in bed. It’s not really “writing” per se, but more like sketching, and takes up about 4% of my writing time. I do all my “real” writing at my desk, on a Mac. I wrote Snakes & Ladders at the desk in the photo here but in three different apartments. The first draft was written in a tiny bachelor apartment in North Toronto looking out a huge window into a wall of trees. I revised and finished the MS in a basement one-bedroom in Little Portugal facing a wall of red-brick. I finalized the edit and proofs (just today!) in the top story of a big old house in Parkdale looking out into a massive horse chestnut and jack pine. I like being back up in the trees with the birds and squirrels.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

SS Simply put, I write at my desk because that is where the writing happens. I’m certainly not the first to say it, but I believe a writer has to have a place of his/her own to write. Some people say they can work anywhere but I don’t believe them. I feel as though my desk is as important to me as a taxi is to a cab driver. When I was a teenager, I knew I would one day become a fulltime writer, but I didn’t know how to do that because I came from an environment that did not value the written word. I had to find a way to carve that out on my own, and a desk, I eventually discovered, was essential to that. In the photo, up above my desk, to the left, you can just make out black-and-white photos of two of my favourite writers sitting at their desks. One is John Cheever and the other is P.G. Wodehouse. I cut those photos from Jill Krementz’s amazing book The Writer’s Desk, which was a very important book for me when it was published in 1996 because it provided a window into a world I wanted to enter. Sadly, it’s now out of print.

DS What are you working on now?

SS Assuming “now” is a flexible term, I’m working on a second YA novel, called The Slow Machine. It’s a road-trip story about a boy, his father and (escaped con) grandfather. That’s about all I can divulge on that at the moment. I’m also working on the outline (ie: scribbling in notebooks) for a five-book fantasy series.

As a journalist I seem to be talking to at least one different chef every day now, so of late I have been tacking the modifier “food” onto my journalist handle. I used to be a chef myself, so when I broke with that career in the 1990s to focus on writing, it became logical that I start writing about food, start looking at the kitchen from the outside in. Right now I have a bunch of food articles on the go—a piece about cookbooks by Ferran Adrià and Heston Blumenthal, another about squab, another about four young Canadian chefs.

2009-03-26T11:12:00.001-07:00

Coming up

2009-03-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

This week on DESK SPACE: Shaun Smith

JENNIFER LOVEGROVE

2009-03-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

Jennifer LoveGrove for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who (a one-liner or a bio)?

JENNIFER LOVEGROVE Jennifer LoveGrove is the author of two books of poetry: I Should Never Have Fired the Sentinel (ECW Press, 2005) and The Dagger Between Her Teeth (ECW Press, 2002). She produces and hosts the literary radio program "In Other Words" once a month on CKLN 88.1FM. For over ten years, she has edited and published dig. Visit her at jenniferlovegrove.com

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book (or when are you publishing your next)?

JL I started writing stories from a very young age. I remember hanging out in my closet, sitting on the floor with a standard typewriter, writing a story called "The Macaws' Triumph." It was the first thing I ever submitted to a publisher, and I was shocked and devastated when it was rejected. I think I was in the fourth grade.

DS Where do you write (at your desk/outside/in bed)?

JL I no longer write by flashlight in a closet. Mostly I am really normal and sit at my desk and type. I do sit on a pilates ball instead of a chair because it feels better and is good for the lower back, which I am also hoping improves my hockey-playing skills. Sometimes I write at the Rhino or at my friend Julia's when we have Writing Marathon Day (which usually involves prosecco and gossip). I carry a notebook and write bits of stuff that come to mind on the subway or when I'm half asleep, but that doesn't really count.

DS Why do you work where you do (at your desk because it is a quiet space/outside b/c it helps you think/in the park b/c you can smoke, etc)?

JL I write at my desk because it is near all the tools of procrastination that I employ: kitchen, bath, laundry, music, etc. Also because I have a large, numbered and colour-coded chart to help me organize the weird chronology and points of view in my current manuscript, and I refer to it often. It's too big to carry around with me.

DS What are you working on now?

JL I am working on the next draft of my novel, Watch How We Walk. I look forward to finishing it, for the love of god.

2009-03-18T17:24:00.001-07:00