melanie brannagan frederiksen

and i thought by using an explicitly recursive structure, that i’d glitched that reading in this ms. but, reading my editor’s comments, i’m not sure it works. so, now, worried that i have to restructure the whole thing on an unfathomly tight deadline

yes, and i kind of get where the reading is coming from: we just want to know that whatever pain and trauma that we’re in the midst of, that there’s a way out. but i suspect there’s not always.

and these are all books i *love* and admire, and they are huge influences that i’m trying to live up to

caught in the gravity of the genre's foundational texts #editing

an argument between the way i understand my experiences and the demand that narrative arcs toward resolution i've been having in my work for over a decade

this bullpen, man. raising my blood pressure, and not in a good way. #bluejays

the "i am currently a snot monster" stage of being sick sure is an improvement over the "i can't breath" stage of being sick, but still. i'm demolishing kleenex like it's my job or something.

So the news is out: I will be the Writer in Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library, from October 1 to April 30th. Being WiR has always been a dream of mine, so I am honoured to have been selected for this role!

how'd it go?

is there a better app than storygraph for keeping track of books read/ to read lists/ etc.? their databases are inadequate, their search is janky af, and adding books is cumbersome, and i'm kinda done with it.

or is it back to pen and notebooks? -- which, i suppose, wouldn't be the worst

friends in Winnipeg -- i'll be reading tomorrow. details: Wild and Wonderful Words Reading Series/ Sookrams/ 7pm/ readers: John Scoles, Craig Terlson, Brett Leanne, me. so come out, if you're up to it. from me, you'll hear part of chapter one of something veeeery new.

For those who need Proust, WB, Blanchot and Poulet today 🖤. The way this is structured elicits the goosebumps of reading Stanley Cavell’s breakdown of remarriage comedies eons ago. Eons now. Eons for evers.

drive.google.com/file/d/1DuGz...

exciting!

It’s crazy that this is the first 9/11 anniversary where basically nobody is going to be talking about 9/11

last night i thought i would read just a chapter of A Truce that is not Peace, and the next time i looked at the clock, it was 2:17 and i'd read the whole book.

The Sea of Talk by Liz Berry. The bond between her and her father & their language, Black Country dialect, but could so easily relate to other minority languages. That academic and societal erasure, that ill-founded expectation that everyone should speak properly.

#poetry
#poemoftheday
#language

i dug up a novel i was working on a decade ago, a novel that wasn't working on so many levels it's hard to even summarize, and finding that i know what story i'm trying to tell with it. exciting! (also, omg, i will never finish all the things i'm trying to write!)

i had grand plans to go for a long bike ride and make a bunch of art to mark my birthday. instead i had coffee with a friend, napped, hung out with the cat, and read Cecily Nicholson's Crowd Source. all in all, a good day.

Hate is not a "perspective" Just heard finance minister François-Philippe Champagne claim on CBC Radio 1 that the Liberal Government invited the Project 25 guy to their cabinet session in order to hear a different perspective. glad the dude cancelled. I repeat: Hate is not a perspective.

happy birthday!

keeping my fingers crossed!

it's everything!

one thing into another? She runs; she ran; she will run again.” from The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

….and i’m caught

“There was a time when grammar was wild — when it shifted shapes and unleashed new forms out of old. Grammar, like gramarye, like grimoire. What is magic but change in the world? What is conjugation but a transformation,

or should i just get a better set up for my phone?

is it possible to record what’s happening on a computer screen — like a screengrab but moving? if so, how?

not me ugly crying on the subway over Madeleine Thien’s Dogs at the Perimeter

The Rough Poets: Reading Oil Worker Poetry extracts a rich literary history

my review of Melanie Dennis Unrau's The Rough Poets in @winnipegfreepress.com: www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-lif...

I'll never forget that Canada Post letter carries deferred their contract negotiation during the COVID-19 pandemic because the workers felt they had a responsibility to continue to LITERALLY CARRY CANADA'S ECONOMY ON THEIR BACKS

The way they are being treated as thanks for their service is SHAMEFUL

the anxiety i experience about what books to bring with me when i’m travelling is truly wild, given ebooks are things and i’m going to Toronto (famous, i know, for having zero book stores /sarcasm)

Maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished. Maybe happen is never one but like ripples maybe on water after the pebble sinks, the ripples moving on, spreading. . .

- William Faulkner, ABSALOM, ABSALOM