Get another sneak peek of Stories About Storytellers this Friday at the Canadian Encyclopedia blog. This week, Doug shares his experiences working on Brian Mulroney’s memoirs. To read the excerpt, head over to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
(Have you missed the previous excerpts? You can still read the selections on Mavis Gallant, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau, Stephen Leacock and Alice Munro.)
In Banff, where I taught at the Banff Publishing Workshop from 1981 to 1988, I ran into the usual elk stories. The drifting herds of elk were a prominent part of the campus , and in rutting season (October, and thus Writers’ Festival season) there were so many problems that I remember Roddy Doyle complaining that he had experienced a lot, touring the world to promote his books but, as he put it in his worried North Dublin accent, this was the first time he had been in danger “of being focked by an elk.”
One of the things I’ve learned about being on the writers’ festival tour is that you’re on a magic carpet, whisked by kindly drivers from the airport to your hotel, which comes complete with a hospitality suite. Even better, the suite comes complete with an interesting group of other writers, who tend to be on the same circuit. So in Banff, and then Vancouver, and so on, I found myself running into the same people, in very convivial circumstances. Sometimes they share a programme with you (in Banff, after my own event, I had fun chairing the final session, featuring the fiction quintet of Germany’s Thomas Pletzinger, my old friend Madeleine Thien, Scotland’s Stuart McBride, Helen Humphreys, and David Bezmozgis). And sometimes they are old, close friends like Guy Vanderhaeghe, whom I’ve published right from the start, until his current fine book, A Good Man.
Guy’s Saturday night reading was the high point at Banff, where he alluded to an elk story, without elaborating. I know the story, and can reveal it here. Some years ago (possibly even before Roddy Doyle’s complaint) Guy was staying at the Centre, in rutting season. Coming out after breakfast he noticed that the herd had drifted across to block his path up to his residence, and that the male was looking aggressive. So he prudently waited at the foot of the stairs, a barrier to the elk. A confident young woman came out from breakfast, and Guy politely suggested that it might be best to wait for ten minutes until the elk moved on. She took this suggestion badly.
“I will walk wherever I please!” she announced, and strode towards them.
The male elk had not read the proper books. In Guy’s words, “She ended up behind a tree,” yelling for help.
Guy is familiar with cattle and horses, so he tore off his jacket, waving it as he bravely approached the elk, to distract it from the trapped woman. It worked. The woman was able to escape up the hill while the elk charged Guy, who just made it to the safety of the stairs with the elk in snorting pursuit. Guy did not sprain an ankle. The elk did not stay in the area for long. And the woman did not seek Guy out to thank him.
— Douglas Gibson
In this weekend’s London Free Press, reviewer Nancy Schiefer has nothing but good things to say about Stories About Storytellers. She calls it “a bonanza for book lovers” and concludes,
Gibson’s delightful, behind-the-scenes look at some of Canada’s most prominent writers is a remarkable, four-decade romp through the back rooms of publishing. It is a book which highlights the descriptive talents of Douglas Gibson himself, as good a storyteller as the writers he takes such pleasure in presenting.
Read the full review here.
Sample another morsel of Stories About Storytellers courtesy of the Canadian Encyclopedia’s weekly feature. This week, get the story behind the enigmatic cover quotation — Mavis Gallant exclaiming, “I’ll kill him!” To read the excerpt, head over to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
(Have you missed the previous excerpts? You can still read the selections on Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau, Stephen Leacock and Alice Munro.)
Every two weeks we’re sharing tips for editors from the desk of Douglas Gibson. Good for those starting out or old hands who need a reminder, these reminders form an engaging guide for sharp-eyed wordsmiths.
Tip #3:
Chronological order is always a very useful ball of twine to lead you through an author’s maze.
Before heading over to his sold out show at the Vancouver International Writers Festival, Doug did an interview with the Vancouver Sun. He talks about his favourite book as a child, his current reads, his workspace and more. Read it here.
The day after Thanksgiving, the Winnipeg Free Press ran a piece on Douglas Gibson by Gordon Sinclair, what he calls “a tribute, of sorts, to a living person.” Sinclair writes of his own experience publishing a book with Gibson, weaving it with the story of Gibson’s experience writing Stories About Storytellers. Read the article online here.
The Canadian Encyclopedia has more Stories About Storytellers for you this Friday. In this week’s excerpt of the Robertson Davies chapter, find out more about the man behind the formidable beard. To read the excerpt, head over to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
(Have you missed the previous excerpts? You can still read the selections on Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau, Stephen Leacock and Alice Munro.)
Many early readers of Stories About Storytellers have remarked that they finish reading it only to rush to pick up one of the other books Doug has so lovingly described. So to make it easier, this recurring feature revisits some of those books and reminds you why they’re worth a read. Last time, we revisited Dickens of the Mounted, and this we’re featuring . . .
Broken Ground by Jack Hodgins (1998)
Many readers think of Jack Hodgins as a fine, good-humoured writer whose strength lies in writing cheerful stories set on Vancouver Island. Not this time. This novel is set on the Island, but in a “soldier’s settlement,” where veterans who survived the First World War have been given land by a grateful nation. Of course the land is marginal, dominated by giant tree stumps that have to be blasted out in a landscape that reminds the men of the trenches in France they escaped so recently.
The war is a constant dark, brooding presence to the men and women whose voices tell this story, with many scenes set at the Front. Then the horror of an advancing forest fire brings the present dangerously alive.
When you read it, you’ll see why this book won the Drummer General’s Award, given to protest the fact that such an excellent book failed to win the Governor-General’s Award or the Giller Prize. It is a remarkable blend of the two worlds, the trenches and the pioneer settlement, and it is told with immense power. Don’t miss it.
For more on Broken Ground, see page 149 of Stories About Storytellers.
This Sunday, the Edmonton Journal published a very fine review of Stories About Storytellers. Reviewer Robert Wiersema writes,
“For Gibson, in life and in this book, it all comes back to the writers. The writers and their books are central to Stories about Storytellers, and Gibson shows them to their best advantage, as he has been doing for 50 years. Every writer should be so blessed as to have an editor like Gibson in their corner; every reader should spend some time with his stories.”
Read the full review here.
Douglas Gibson 