* * *

Priscila Uppal originally aped Elisabeth Bachinsky's on-the-shoulders pose but then quickly flipped her hands over to show me her palms, saying that she had "old people's hands" and that "fortune tellers love my hands, all the lines."

* * *

Over the next year, Priscila Uppal's books include:

The Exile Book of Canadian Sports Stories (Editor: Priscila Uppal). Exile Editions, 2009.
To Whom It May Concern. Penguin India, 2009.
Successful Tragedies: Selected Poetry 1998-2010. UK: Bloodaxe Books, 2010.

* * *
Ariel Gordon is the Winnipeg-based author of two recent small press chapbooks and has had poetry published in fine lit mags such as Carousel, PRISM International and Prairie Fire.

Her first collection of poetry, Hump, is forthcoming from Ontario's Palimpsest Press in spring 2010.

When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

* * *

I asked Elizabeth Bachinsky if I could shoot her hands immediately after her Afternoon Book Chat at McNally Robinson's Polo Park. She paused, then asked me to catch her during the Mainstage, as she was going for a manicure that afternoon. "Maybe french tips," she purred, before following Rhea Tregebov out of the bookstore.

But she might have had second thoughts, as her hands were shell pink and shiny when she laid them on her shiny shoulder. I apologized for the flash then walked away.

* * *

Books by Elizabeth Bachinsky:

Curio. Toronto: Bookthug, 2005.
Home of Sudden Service. Gibson's: Nightwood, 2006.
God of Missed Connections. Gibson's: Nightwood, 2009.

* * *
Ariel Gordon is the Winnipeg-based author of two recent small press chapbooks and has had poetry published in fine lit mags such as Carousel, PRISM International and Prairie Fire.

Her first collection of poetry, Hump, is forthcoming from Ontario's Palimpsest Press in spring 2010.

When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

I am a firm believer that writing should be, needs to be, rooted in a place, or places. In my own writing I nearly always put in references to specific places, however subtle or overt those references may be. Where we are, where we’ve come from are important to who we are, and who we are is where our writing comes from.

What is poetry without roots? Who are we without history? Poetry does have roots and we do have history, it is acknowledging that and embracing it that is important.

Cyril Dabydeen has roots in three places: India, where his family emigrated from; Guyana, where they immigrated to; and Canada, where he has lived for nearly forty years. His writing acknowledges and draws from all of these places and the places between. India, Guyana, and Canada each have their place in Cyril Dabydeen’s writing, both his poetry and his prose.

The immigrant experience, I imagine, is largely a liminal one--constantly existing between two places.

Writing from places we know is how we share who we are.

We live in places. We exist between where we live and where we’ve come from.

Elizabeth Bachinsky lives in BC. She exists between BC and the Ukraine, where her roots lie. Her poetry is aware of and reflects this beautifully.

Writing can not exist outside of Place.

****

Brandon James Bertram is an English/Creative Writing student at the University of Winnipeg. He reads, writes, rides bikes, and drinks coffee.

The rush on the books table after Linda Frank's nooner.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

So it occurs to me last night that until now I may have been going about this festival thing all wrong. It seems that if you talk to people instead of sitting in the back, wearing a poet hat, these main stage things can be a blast and not only because of the free cheese (by the way, they have an herby looking one this year. I didn’t try it, because I’m mostly a marble guy, but it looked tasty. Let me know).

You see, last night I finally spoke with some of the people around the festival and realized they aren’t all as blood thirsty as the afternoon book chat audiences. They’re actually pleasant people. I have photographic evidence.

These are three of the people I talked to last night. I like them. The one with the wicked witch of the west tights on is Chandra Mayor. She is wicked, but like in the 80’s. I’ve known her for a long time. She’s a writer and the most famous person I know. Buy her books.

Next to her is Clare. Clare I haven’t known for long. She sometimes wears cowboy shirts and works for the CBC. Both of these are really cool things. That’s why I like her.

And finally, the one on the end is Colin. I don’t know him well, but in my experience you need to stay on the good side of a quiet guy who chews on a toothpick. Hi Colin.

They let me sit with them. It was nice.

I also saw some people I used to work with at McNally Robinson. They were manning the book selling table. I though Megan and Lucas were cool until they started pretending they didn’t know me because I pointed out how they could be selling books faster. I used to sell books, I know things. Anyway here’s a picture of them even though they don’t deserve the press.

Oh, and you know who else is really nice? The other bloggers. I saw them last night too.

I thought I wouldn’t like the new guy cause of his cheese fetish, but he’s a beard guy like me (at least I think he had a beard. Maybe he was just scruffy. Well, I’m scruffy too, so either way, he’s alright).

Courtney I know from last year. She and Ariel are the ones that keep the blog a little more highbrow. Imagine what it’d be like if it were just me and the cheese guy running around. Charlene would not be happy. I don’t have a picture of them so here’s one of the receiving dept. of a bookstore. There’s a man in a hard hat.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Guess who I got to meet, George freakin Amabile. Ya, that’s right, he’s like a real big time poet and I met him. He even had a hat, just like in the pictures. It was beige and everything. It was so cool. And he had wine and he even said something and we were talking and I’m like I wish we were Facebook friends and….maybe I should stop writing about George Amabile now.

Anyway, last night was pretty great. I never really realized how much fun the main stage can be. I guess it’s not really about the cheese. There’s more. There’s the boxed wine. Take care. Talk to you soon.

J

* * *
Jason Diaz is a Winnipeg-based writer and stay at home dad. His poetry and prose has been published in dark leisure magazine. Last year he joined the Thin Air collective and has been awaiting the festival’s arrival ever since. He has still only been interviewed by The Uniter once, and is sadly no longer licensed to drive forklift.

Last night Elizabeth Bachinsky made me cry.

Not because she beat me up or called me names or anything.

It was because she opened up her reading by singing in Ukrainian.

Then she went on to reference Getrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in one of her poems.

And then she mentioned Winnipeg.

Pretty much there are 3 direct routes to my heart and she managed to take them all within her half hour reading.


Needless to say I was left feeling that very particular way that only some writing can make you feel.

It left me with the body memory of why writing is so necessary. Because it evokes a visceral response that goes beyond the intellectual processing that my mind loves to do.

It tells the internal chatter to shut up and sit down and all that is left is your body, and your being, responding to the tugging and weaving of words put together in such a way that everything else manages to fall away.


Mainstage last night was entitled In Between Places and it dealt with the ideas of home, belonging and connection.
I have been in love with another author for a while now, Marusya Bociurkiw, who also deals a lot with her Ukrainian identity.
(If you haven't figured it out yet, I am Ukrainian.)

When I think about home and belonging, when I think about the histories of my families, I find myself searching out the kind of work that brings me to a place of connecting with other writers who have stories of their baba and gigi, stories of having an empty place setting at Christmas Eve dinner for all of the relatives who have died.

Home is in the sharing of our stories and the ability to recognize some part of ourselves in other people's words.


It brings us back to a place we might not know we had left.


I'm sure there are some of you who connected with some of the experiences of the other writers last night, be it Cyril Dabydeen, Priscilla Uppal, Endre Farkas or Carolyn Marie Souaid. Each writer brought an element of their own experience of home.

The more space there is for this kind of writing, the more I am reminded of exactly why everyone that wants to, needs the space to write their way home.


It brings us back, and it has the power to bring the reader back too.


everyone deserves this.



Courtney Slobogian was born in Winnipeg and likes it that way.

She is a writer/understated activist/ irreverent feminist.

Some of her work can be tracked down in quiet corners of the internet.

She co-hosts a radio show on CKUW called Tiger Lilies are Poisonous, and dislikes cotton socks. She wrote a thesis once.