Good morning, Yellowknife

Friday was a crazy day. I had hoped to get everything prepared for my Yellowknife trip in a leisurely fashion, but events conspired against me. Primarily an unfortunate back-and-forth with the Heart of a Poet producer that is making me regret my involvement in that TV series, and a flurry of League of Canadian Poets activity around a grievance by Paul Dutton that I wrote in support of.

Anyway, now I'm in Yellowknife. I am being billeted in the home of a very nice couple. I'm going to spend Rosh Hoshanah in a home hung with crosses. Yellowknife seems fascinating -- reminds me a bit of New Denver, if New Denver was spread over the area of a small city instead of a couple of kilometres. My billet family took me for a quick car tour that included a windy street with several mush-dog kennels, another street called Ragged Ass Road, and all sorts of colourful little locations. This is gonna be an educational one, this stay in Yellowknife. Very excited about it, but filled with some trepidation over a few of the school visits I'll be doing: I mean, I'm a weird-ass poet; what will they think of me here?

Meanwhile, things are going well with my Toronto Public Library electronic residency. I'm enjoying running a discussion forum, and a few kids seem pretty engaged by it. I've only received four manuscripts to critique so far, but I think that'll increase, especially after the Young Writers Conference on October 22.

Also wrote a blurb for Jay MillAr for a book he's publishing through BookThug: author's name is Morten Søndergaard. Incredible book. I wish I'd written it. Haven't read anything much like it before, though it did have shades of Beckett.

I'm dead tired right now. Woke up at 5 Saturday morning to catch my plane. Better get some sleep so I don't get sick.

Tomorrow: a "free" day to just wander the streets of Yellowknife.

Over and out.