Well folks, it appears the festival is over for this year. It was my first time attending Thin Air, and obviously my first time blogging for it.

Not fully knowing what to expect I went into the week a little anxious but excited. And, it was awesome!

I jumped right in, attending three out of five nooners, fiver out of the six evening mainstages, four of the campus readings, two AfterWords, and one TV premier.

There were many great moments throughout the week but the highlight for me was George Elliott Clarke who I made sure to see twice. I was a little disappointed when he ran out of books at Red River (he was selling them for $15) but I made sure to buy one (for $24.95) at the AfterWords reading at Aqua Books. I waited to meet him and have him sign the book and it was worth it. He's very kind and seems to enjoy chatting with his fans. Inscribed in my copy of his new verse-novel I & I are these words:

For Brandon--who is a poet already , given the sincerity and the passion!

Truly,

George Elliott Clarke
25 September IX

Now I have to write.

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

Michael Van Rooy is THIN AIR's Audience Development Coordinator. He also has a weekly column on writing and publishing in the Winnipeg Free Press and administers CMU's School of Writing...and there's probably things he does for money I don't know about.

Michael is also a writer, specifically a writer of thrillers. (A thriller-writer? A thrilling writer?)

Here's the bio they used for Michael when he performed at the festival last year instead of working for it:

Michael Van Rooy writes for documentaries, magazines, newspapers, and the Internet, and has been short-listed for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. His first book, An Ordinary Decent Criminal, gained him an enthusiastic audience as well as the 2006 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book by a Manitoba Writer. His second book, Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal (Turnstone), introduces Monty Haaviko, an ex-thief, ex-burglar, ex-armed robber, ex-smuggler, and ex-drug-dealer who’s lured into using his nasty talents again. Michael Van Rooy was born in Kamloops BC, and grew up in Winnipeg where he lives now with his wife and three children.

Well, this week, when Michael was trotting from event to event, he got some VERY good news. Which I thought I'd share here, in case you missed it (also, in case HE missed it)...as published in the Winnipeg Free Press:

"WINNIPEG writer Michael Van Rooy's first two thrillers have been picked up by an American publisher. Thomas Dunne Books will release Van Rooy's debut, An Ordinary Decent Criminal, on its Minotaur mystery imprint in July 2010.

Van Rooy's U.S. editor, Peter Wolverton, confirmed the deal by e-mail this week.

In 2011, Wolverton said, Thomas Dunne will release Van Rooy's followup Your Friendly Neighbourhood Criminal.

Thomas Dunne Books is a division of the New York-based St. Martin's Press."

So, to sum: Yay Michael! And: Get some sleep!

* * *

T'ai Pu was the closing performer of the festival, when you think about it. I mean, Sunday's programming consisted of a screening of Book Shorts, which are book-inspired videos, but that's not an in-person author. Which means that on Saturday night, it was Guy Maddin, George Toles & T'ai Pu.

Anyways, T'ai plunked his hands down on Aqua's counter after his performance, pulling out a ring that broke during his set for the first series of pictures. Then he remarked, "I'm a bangle person," and rolled up his sleeves to reveal a number of bracelets.

But those photos weren't as good, so you'll just have to imagine the bangles.

* * *

T'ai Pu's bio:

T’ai Pu, aka PuConA, was born in rhyme cyphas, groomed in drum circles, nourished by DJs and bands. His word/sound power is expressed through verbals (lyrics, written pieces), spitz (extemporaneous spoken word), voxbox (beatboxing, chants), and percussion. T’ai Pu has performed at jazz and folk festivals, radio-shows, nightclubs, special events, and community projects, and has recorded with several artists. He has captured the attention of young kids in schools and at Kidsfest with his lively poetry&music show, “Keep Sweepin’!” He’s equally adept with teens and adults, mesmerizing audiences with his verbal virtuosity and genuine warmth. T’ai Pu lives in Winnipeg.

* * *
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.

During the first half of THIN AIR, I usually make it to three quarters of my yah-yah-yah list.

But then, as the days pass, I start to get tired.

Events during the day, events at night...and I ruefully eye the filling sink, the un-shuffled laundry in the washer, mostly in passing. My daughter waves to me from the dining room table, where her dad is feeding her dinner.

This year, I made it to more Mainstages than ever before, but by Friday morning, I was tired, so I didn't make it to ANY of the Friday daytime events I'd circled. And the only reason I made Friday night's After Words event was because I was wearing my working-at-Aqua-Books hat...

But watching George Elliot Clarke read and talk at such length, with such great gory pleasure, about his I&I verse-novel, was rejuvenating.

His face nearly split open as he recited and he seemed eager to lose himself in the work, to inhabit the psyche of his 15 year-old self.

(GEC explained that he was reading through his teenage journals before donating them to a university library and he was compelled by a line here, a line there, so he copied them into his journal...and then a narrative appeared.)

(He also said this one was written for fun; the gory pleasure of sex & violence, music everywhere, the loose incredible energy of youth.)

It took THIN AIR staff nearly an hour to pry GEC away from the people who stayed to chat and get their books signed, an hour they clearly would have loved to spend sleeping, but it was a good way to spend my mid-fest slump.

(I should also note that Kelly Hughes, the owner of Aqua Books, sent me upstairs after he'd intro-ed GEC out of the kindness of his heart. He'd had me come in to mind the store while he played host, after all...)

Here are some pictures of the George Elliot Clarke reading at Red River College. I can't tell you how great it was. I spent all afternoon trying. If you saw him, you know what I mean.









It was awesome.

Seriously.

J.

* * *

Tim Wynne-Jones, who read a segment from The Uninvited about a ailing mother with designs on her doctor's emerald necklace, very cooperatively put his unadorned hands on the poppy-coloured on-stage couch. Of his hands, Wynne-Jones said, "I always felt they were sort of small."

* * *

Tim Wynne-Jones has 3 books out this year:

Pounce De Leon. Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2008.
Rex Zero, the Great Pretender. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2009.
The Uninvited. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 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.

And so it went... I made my way to Polo Park expecting to be early enough to browse the bargain book section before the event was to begin. But when I got there (at 6:45) Robert J Sawyer was already up front talking about the process of adapting his book to tv. When I inquired I was told that the time was bumped to 6:30 as opposed to the 7:30 start time in the program (I guess Charlene was onto something when she said check the website because things can change).

But anyway, I was there, and the show hadn't started yet.

BUT...the place was packed! The only chairs left were at the very back and when I finally wormed my way through the crowd to an empty seat and sat down I found I could only see the top third of the screen. This was just not going to work, so when the show finally started, after hearing Sawyer yap on and on about how good the acting was and how satisfied he was and about how much money he was making, and on and on, I, along with the gentleman next to me, decided to stand up so we could see the screen better. This was okay, but not the most comfortable way to spend an hour, but hey, there are commercial breaks, right? I can sit down then.

WRONG. There were commercial breaks, but before the first one even arrived who should come in even later than myself and find and sit in the seat that I had been sitting in? Why Christian Bok of course, along with his ragtag gang of two.

So there I was, standing at the back, leaning against a wall of military history books, right behind Christian Bok and company. FOR AN HOUR.

Was it worth it?

I kept telling myself that there was always the option of cutting out early, maybe even heading to the mainstage where there are chairs and cheese and Margaret Sweatman, but I. could. not. seem. to. pull. myself. away.

It caught me, it pulled me in. The premise is this: everyone in the world blacks out at the exact same time for the exact same length of time, 2 minutes 17 seconds. During that time, each person has a vision of their life exactly six months into the future.

Crazy, right? That couldn't happen. But I guess that's why they call it speculative fiction. Anyway, it's one of those serial dramas, like Lost, which means you have to keep watching every week or you won't know what's going on. But you'll want to know what's going on so you will watch because it's interesting and mysterious. They got me. Now I have to try to find someway to watch it next week to see what happens. And then, I'll have to find someway to watch it the week after that, and the week after that. This is not good. Especially since I don't have any tv stations. But, with things the way they are these days, I can probably find it online which would be just dandy.

There are also some pseudo-interesting philosophical undertones to the story: questions of whether or not us knowing the future can allow us to change the future, and things like that.

It was all pretty good, but I kind of wish I hadn't gone, because now I have to keep watching and if I don't, I'll forever be left wondering why it was that Harold (from Harold and Kumar) didn't have a vision...a FlashForward of his future.

Sawyer was extremely happy with how it turned out and it seemed Christian Bok and friends were as well, when at the end they started chanting, "Sawyer, Sawyer, Sawyer."

Thankfully, no one else joined in.

****

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