Back through the Rockies... to the Fictitious Reading Series

Stopping again in Inveremere on the way from Kimberley to the Calgary Airport. Great to spend a couple days with Jeff and his family, and work in Selkirk Secondary again. The first day there, I did hour-long workshops with three different English classes, which went really well. On Friday, a local hotel, the Chateau Kimberley, donated their modest downstairs breakfast room and next semester's Creative Writing students congregated there with me for about four hours. An incredible group.

The room was so nice, sunlight flooding in, the occasional little spider strolling by on the ceiling, an overall friendly atmosphere. And the notel folks kept coming in to refresh the water and tea and fruit they donated to us. The kids were so open-minded about my crazy poetry exercises and they produced so much fantastic work. Some of them had never met each other, and the experience was sort of like summer camp, but just a four-hour summer camp. They left chomping at the bit for the new semester, when Jeff'll take them further into Creative Writing.

After the class, Jeff and I visited the offices of Kootenay Karnival, a really neat glossy arts mag, but very grass-roots, that serves all of the Kootenays. As always, Brian, the editor, was very welcoming, and he invited me to submit some work for the mag. Which I'll do.

Friday night, Jeff organized a living-room reading for me, but with a workshop component. We did some collaborations, translations, and a poem based on Joe Brianard's "Still Lifes." When the local jock wrote this really sensitive smart poem about his dad, jaws dropped. We wound up the evening with a reading by me, and time trickled by till 2 a.m.

Tomorrow night, in Toronto, the Fictitious Reading Series:

Derek McCormack, author of The Haunted Hillbilly and Wish Book, will be reading, along with Trevor Strong, a member of the musical comedy trio the Arrogant Worms; Trevor's been writing demented little fairy tales, as well as a novel.

7:30 pm on Sunday night, at This Ain't the Rosedale Library, 483 Church Street, Toronto.
Admission is by pass-the-hat. Feel free to bring something to drink.

Over and out.