Charlotte Gill | author site & blog

October 31, 2005

Tomorrow, we blog

A few weeks ago, upon return from planting, I cleaned my fridge of various neglected Petri projects gushing spores all over the crisper. A bunch of cilantro left in a plastic bag for two months can look very unlike a plant when all is said and done. I think there was even a bag of chicken I'd thawed one night and then forgotten on the bottom shelf. All of these things I chucked in the undersink garbage--a humid, warm-from-the-pipes sort of mini biome--intending to garbage the garbage later. Later became later and the next morning I simply walked out, turning the key in the lock for a week of literary-type activities in other parts of the country. That's how much time I've spent at home since this summer. Yesterday, after several hours of laundry and binge housekeeping, things are right again in the grotto.

October 21, 2005

The Banff Effect

Anyone who has spent any time at the Banff Centre (formerly for the Arts) knows it's tough to sit in a bowl of jagged mountains and get anything remotely creative done. The beauty makes your heart ache. There's also the aggressive pampering one suffers at the hands of the young housekeeper/snowboarders. I had to put the sign on my door knob just to keep them from pushing towels two and three times a day. The Banff Centre has aggressively luxurious towels. Thick and tightly woven, they not only dry you but seem to wick the natural emollients from your pores before your skin has a chance to secrete them. I'm a low-elevation, rainforest sort of girl, and the lack of moisture in the air up there made me fool around with the idea of using lip balm on my eyeballs.

Some of my friends have gone to the Banff Centre with ominous deadlines, their manuscripts sizzling their hands, only to spend their residencies hiking, hiding behind trees from elk, hitting on ballerinas, gargling martinis at the Banff Springs Hotel, etc. There's simply too much Planet Earth here. Too much gorgeous, life-type shit to do. Last time I visited I had to draw the curtains, turn on the computer, and pretend I was in Surrey.

October 20, 2005

G-G love and the evil sauce

Earlier this week, when I was in Banff, I received an early-morning phone call from my publisher's publicist in Toronto. She said "governor-general" and "nomination," but I couldn't make out a lot of the other stuff. There was a fair bit of traffic-like crowd noise in the background and her phone was going supernova with all the excitement. I had been awake and upright for less than two minutes, having peeled my face from my pillow, and already I could feel this exquisite high-elevation hangover developing out of my greenish mental fog. I had been up most of the night before drinking beer with Fred Stenson, Chris Fisher, et al of the Calgary Writer's Fest. By the time the phone had rung for the fourth time, all I could think was: "Shoot, there go my plans for a day of TV in bed with ginger ale."

Here is the G-G shortlist for fiction, in Ebonics, as translated by Gizoogle:

Joseph Boyden , New Orleans (LA) / ON, fo' Three Day Road (Vik'n Canada, an imprint of Penguin Group (Canada); distributed by tha crazy ass nigga (ISBN 0-670-06362-2).

Three Day Road is a dippin' n gripp'n story of cultural clash n redemption set against tha horrors of tha First World War. It shows wit bootylicious brotha how we can be influenced n betrayed by our myths fo my bling bling.

Golda Fried, Greensboro (NC), [formerly of Toronto], fo' Nellcott Is My Pimpin' (Coach Hizouse Books; distributed by LitDistco / Drug Deala Direct) (ISBN 1-55245-151-8)

A gem of compressed n elegant steppin' Nellcott Is My Darl'n is tha W-I-Double-Tizzy account of a hapless university student afraid ta lose her virginity n afraid not to fo' sheezy.

Charlotte Gill , Vancouva, fo' Playa (Thomas Allen Publisha, a division of Thomas Allen & S-to-tha-izzon; distributed by tha gangsta
(ISBN 0-88762-177-5)

In Charlotte Gill's sleekly minimizzles narratizzle poser bitch selves emerge in surpris'n ways n places. Innovative in structure, these clockin' stories reflect uniquely contemporary situations.

David Gilmour, Toronto, fo' A Perfect Night ta Go ta China (Thomas Allen Brotha, a division of Thomas Allen & Son; distributed by tha brotha
(ISBN 0-88762-167-8)

Poser a moment of parental inattention, a child disappears. Haunt'n, spare n lyrical, A Perfect Night ta Go ta China recounts a distraught fatha's nightmare as he comes ta terms wit his own culpability.

Kathy Page, S-to-tha-izzalt Spr'n Island (BC), fo' Alphabet (McArthur & Company / Weidenfeld & Nicholson, an imprint of Orion Perpetratin' Group; distributed by McArthur & Company) (ISBN 0-297-60788-X)

Alphabet is a story fraught wit moral ambiguity set in a men's prison in Thatcha's Britain cuz its a doggy dog world. An incarcerated murdera learns ta read n write, open'n himself ta tha perils of communicizzles. Kathy Page creates a pimpin' portrait of a complex, troubled human mah nizzle.

Click here to read the entire Canada Council site, gangsta-style.