| WordFest has ended for another year. The rush of readings and panels is over. The size and variety of the festival increases every year, and with so much to choose from, the experience can be overwhelming. Nobody knows this better than the writers themselves, and I had the opportunity to sit down with one of my favourites, Jane Urquhart, to discuss her WordFest visit and the pros and cons of the festival experience.
Urquhart first came here to attend the Banff School of Fine Arts when she was 15 and still finds Alberta a great place for writers to gather, especially international authors, since it allows them to get a broader taste of Canada. This was the first WordFest that she’s attended, although she’s been to many other book festivals over the years. "There’s different climates with different festivals," she says. "I love the feeling around here – it’s friendly, warm. People seem relaxed and there’s a sense of community with the participants."
The increasing size of WordFest is also a sign that Canadians are reading more than ever. Festival audiences have become more diverse, too. "I think people have been given permission to enter the world of literature as they never have before," says Urquhart. CanLit has begun to be mythologized, increasing readership and study. "Hearing these authors, you learn the regional nature of our country and its writing, which then goes out into the world, and is (doing so) with increasing regularity."
Apart from the weariness of travel and long days, Urquhart enjoys the festival experience and the way it fosters the literary community. "It’s a wonderful way of keeping in touch with friends," she says, adding, however, that the size of many festivals is making it harder for this to happen. "When I first began to attend festivals – Toronto, for example – there would be 20 authors who would stay for the entire time." Now that this isn’t the case, it makes it difficult for writers to connect with international publishers, she says, which is one of the reasons to attend these events. But WordFest has been able to counter this by dividing the festival between Calgary and Banff, which Urquhart finds makes it more intimate and allows authors to stick around longer.
Urquhart also offered her thoughts on the changing face of literature at her first WordFest reading, when she discussed the increasing commercialization of the last couple of decades. "It’s positive, in that a small number of authors can make a living," she says. "Sometimes, however, the commercial overrides the creative or esthetic side, which makes it a competition in the business sense, forgetting that we’re all trying to create a body of literature that will last and be important."
If book festivals are part of that commercialization, they also help demystify the literary world by giving readers an opportunity to meet the people behind their favourite books. And there’s a mutual benefit for the writers, who spend most of their time in solitary work. "It’s quite staggering meeting your readers," says Urquhart. "It really speaks to the solitude of the experience, meeting someone who’s entered into the intimate experience you created."
The finalists for this year's Governor General’s Awards were announced on October 17 and the biggest surprise is that of the 69 nominees (from fiction to poetry to children's literature), 42 are being nominated for the first time. The English-language fiction nominees include Joseph Boyden (Three Day Road) and Charlotte Gill (Ladykiller), both fresh from WordFest, as well as David Gilmour for his creepy new book, A Perfect Night to Go to China, about a child's abduction, and Kathy Page for her prison novel, Alphabet.
Among the English-language play nominees are Richard Sanger for Two Words for Snow, which originally premièred in Calgary at the Alberta Theatre Projects playRites festival, local favourite Daniel MacIvor for Cul-de-sac (seen here at the High Performance Rodeo) and John Mighton for his acclaimed new drama about twilight romance, Half Life. There’s a dearth of Alberta nominees this year, although Edmonton’s Ted Bishop is up for the non-fiction prize for his Riding with Rilke, joining the likes of John Vaillant (The Golden Spruce) and Jessica Warner (The Incendiary). The winners will be announced on November 16. For a complete list of the nominees, visit www.canadacouncil.ca/news/releases/2005.
Something that must be mentioned this week is Robert Kroetsch and Jon Paul Fiorentino's presentation of a new collection of works by Prairie writers, Post-Prairie. The two will join Derek Beaulieu, Louis Cabri, Jason Christie, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jill Hartman and Natalie Simpson as part of the Wild Words Alberta literary conference at the University of Calgary on Sunday, October 23 at 9 a.m. Prior to that, Kroetsch and Fiorentino will be at McNally Robinson on Saturday, October 22 at 6 p.m. Both events are free. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.