DETAILS

WordFest: Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival
Banff Centre
Tuesday, October 14 - Sunday, October 19

More in: Literary

Kinnie Starr is one of Calgary’s shining success stories. After graduating from Western Canada High School, she headed off to Vancouver and launched an explosive music career that has, so far, included four albums and a Juno nomination.

Starr is known for genre bending, with a musical style that mixes rock, punk, hip hop and spoken-word poetry. This fall, Starr has taken yet another leap into the unknown with the publication of her first collection of poetry, How I Learned to Run, by Vancouver-based publisher House of Parlance.

For Starr, publishing a book is a natural progression from a decade of making records. “I’ve been writing all along, it’s just that my writing has gone into songs,” she says. “Now, it’s gone into an adult colouring book.” How I Learned to Run is brimming with illustrations. “The drawings were originally in colour, but they’re black-and-white in the book,” says Starr. “I might have an adult colouring contest at the show, actually. I think it’d be awesome, we’ve been colouring them at home and they look really good.”

Despite feeling at ease with writing, the prospect of attending WordFest is a little unnerving for Starr. “The book’s only three weeks old, and this is my first book festival. I’ve never done a book launch, and I have no idea what to expect, but I’m really excited. I’m so lucky to be around all these top-notch authors.

The cover of How I Learned to Run features a photo of Starr’s knees, which are an important thematic image in her poetry. “When I was a kid, my legs were so skinny that I wasn’t able to run,” says Starr. “It took me until my 30s to start running, and now I can run for, like, 40 minutes. That’s what the book is about, trying to put on weight, trying to get strong.”

Most of the work in the collection was created over the past two years, which coincided with Starr’s journey to the jogging trail. “When I moved out of the city, about five years ago, I went to the Sunshine Coast,” she says. “I was living right by a big patch of forest, and it propelled me forward. The ground was really soft, and I would start pushing up, pushing up, until eventually I could just keep pushing up against the air. And I was like, holy fuck, I’m running! This is wild!”

Starr’s poetry isn’t just about physical strength; it explores her increasing emotional strength, too. “After I’d had the book in hand for a couple days, I realized – oh my God, these are diary entries,” she says. “A lot of this poetry was never, ever meant to be printed. My upcoming songs are very bare-bones and revealing, too. I guess I’m feeling strong enough to reveal some of the softer elements of my character.”

With a new album in the works, Starr still has the urge to branch out artistically. “I’d like to write for film and television,” she muses. “With my songs and poems, it’s just one woman’s perspective on life. But if I could put my head toward a TV show, I could write a bunch of people’s lives into a story I believed in. Storytelling,” she adds, “is pretty dope.”