In response to the frenzied activities of those participating in the US National Novel Writing competition, where contestants endeavour to write a book in a month, Peter L. Winkler has launched National No Writing Month.

What do you have to do?

Nothing.

Well, at least no writing. In particular, avoid any fiction writing.

To help you, Winkler is going to blog about not writing. Enlighten Yourself Here.

Memory Festival Launch Party

Remembrance Day
Sunday, Nov 11, 1-4 pm
Listel Hotel, 1300 Robson St, Vancouver
Free admission

The Memory Festival is a free-floating series of public events focussed on public and private memory, and the questions that surround acts of memory and forgetting.

Vancouver book designer and writer Barbara Hodgson, whose collage appears above, is appearing at the Festival with slides from her new book Trading in Memories, http://www.tradinginmemories.com.

Trading in Memories is Barbara Hodgson’s collage of souvenirs and travel stories from around the world. These are not your ordinary souvenirs. The photos, illustrations and travel anecdotes are about lost and found art picked up off the street, treasures discovered at flea markets and documents uncovered from between the pages of other finds.

(Work Industries created the website for the book. Yes, I’m bias but I think the book is gorgeous. Look inside the book.)

But the event isn’t just about Barbara, other special guests presenting readings, slide shows, exhibits and salubrious conversation include:

* Stephen Osborne, writer
* Faith Moosang, artist
* John Paskievich, photographer
* Dan Francis, historian
* Mary Schendlinger, writer
* Goran Basaric, photographer
* Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, artist
* Sandra Shields, writer
* Jamie Long, playwright,
* Craig Hall, actor
* David Campion, photographer
* Katherine McManus, university administrator
* Anne Grant, photographer

Join the party and share your memories.

http://www.geist.com/memoryfestival

I’m going to be in Winnipeg, but I wanted to remind you about Writing.Wise.

Writing.Wise is an event for writers in the greater Vancouver area, organized by STC Canada West Coast, Vancouver Comicon, SFU Writing & Publishing, The Shebeen Club, FrogHeart Communications and Masters of Digital Media.

Sign up and join a lively discussion about stories and narrative in games, comic books, new media, books (fiction and non fiction), and song.

When: Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Time: 6:30pm to 10:30pm

Where: Radha Yoga and Eatery, 728 Main St., above the Brickhouse Bar

Cost: Members of CWC STC and event partners: $15; Non-members: $20

Register online: click here

About the panelists

Kaare Andrews is a writer and artist who’s worked on comic books such as the Incredible Hulk, Ultimate X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man, Gen13 and the Matrix. He won “Outstanding Comic Book Artist” at the Joe Shuster Awards in 2005. As a filmmaker, he’s directed a number of award-winning short films and as a designer of album covers, he worked on Tegan and Sara’s 2002 album, “:If it was you,” amongst others.

Mira Sundara Rajan, is a musician, author of “Copyright and Creative Freedom,” and the Canada Research Chair in Intellectual Property Law at the University of British Columbia. With a great grandfather who was exiled from British India then welcomed back and lauded as a national poet whose copyright was later nationalized, Sundara Rajan has a compelling story where copyright is concerned.

Sue Thomas, a UK expert in new media, is the author of the book “Hello World travels in virtuality” and others. A literary advisor to the British Council and the Electronic Literature Organization, she is the program leader for the Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University. Her students collaborated with Penguin Books on ‘Million Penguins’. She’ll explain how that blockbusting experimental wikinovel produced some surprising results.

Shari Ulrich recently released her latest solo album. A member of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, a Juno award winner, and a fixture on the Vancouver music scene, Ulrich has performed with Pied Pumkin, Ulrich Henderson Forbes, and Valdy & the Hometown Band. When she’s in town, Ulrich teaches songwriting locally.

Ian Verchere is known as the developer of over 30 game titles including two million-selling titles for Electronic Arts, SSX Tricky and NBA Street V2. Add his classic, best-selling Beavis and Butthead game on Sega Genesis for MTV and signing an exclusive worldwide deal in 1998 to bring Jackie Chan, an internationally renowned action star, into the world of video games and you might conclude that he’s a one trick pony. Well, he’s also been a business man, a founder of Radical Entertainment; an author, “V0N 1B0; General Delivery, Whistler, BC; a creative consultant for Roald Dahl’s literary estate, and a scriptwriter (with Douglas Coupland) who’s sold his work to Disney.

About the moderator
kc dyer is the author of four contemporary and historical young adult novels which have been published in Canada, the US, the UK, and Thailand. She’s also had a short story “Swim” included in, “SHORELINES: A Millennium Anthology” published by the North Shore Writers’ Association. The conference and the writing contest coordinator for the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, dyer is a skilled, capable moderator with experience in, and opinions on, all aspects of the writing scene.

For more event updates, check out the writing.wise blog

Register online: click here

Remember, students of technical communication qualify for the member rate of $15.

Ok I finally joined LibraryThing.com. It’s awesome. I did not think I would enjoy documenting the books in my library, which I’m still doubting will be a fun process. What I do like is that it automatically imported all my reviews on Amazon Listmania. How cool is that?

Next up widgets for the blog.

Anyone else on Library Thing? What features should I know about?

Congratulations to Elizabeth Hay who won this year’s Giller Prize.

Read what CBC has to say.

Her novel Late Nights on Air is set in a small northern town at the the local radio station. It sounds like a comical book and it’s on my reading list.

At the moment though I’m reading another Giller nominee (on the longlist) and a Governor General’s nominee (on the shortlist). It’s Soucouyant by David Chariandy.

This is a novel about forgetting and remembering. The narrator returns to his childhood home to help his aging mother through dementia. It could become sad and dark, but I find it very funny (and revealing).

It’s been a long day, that’s all I’ve got right now. Goodnight all.

Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air, on McClelland.com

J.K. Rowling, my favourite author of Harry Potter, has released book of handwritten fairy tales. It’s up for auction at London Sotheby’s with a starting bid of $60,000. The proceeds go to the Children’s Voice Foundation, a charity that works with child victims of neglect and abuse in Eastern Europe.

Here’s a video of Jo talking about the book:
http://video.the-leaky-cauldron.org/video/889

Get on the Google Bus!

As an infrequent transit user, I’m often flummoxed by the transit schedule. If my route requires only one bus, I go outside and stand at a bus stop. I ask questions of the driver or fellow transit users.

If my route requires me to take more than one bus and I need to arrive at a certain time, I try to use the TransLink Scheduling website. It’s not that bad, but it’s not that intuitive either.

Now I can take the Google bus.

TransLink is the first Canadian bus system to provide data for Google’s transit trip planning system. Since it’s still in beta, and I’m not a regular bus user, I haven’t had a chance to use the system yet. Seems easy enough:

1. Go to www.google.com/transit

2. Click on the “Vancouver” link, in the list on the page.

3. Enter your starting location or address. If your start or end point is in Vancouver, you can just enter the address, like 970 Burrard. If it’s a neighbouring municipality, enter a comma after the street address and then the municipality’s name afterward (i.e. 4711 Kingsway, Burnaby).

Thanks to Morgan News for the transit tip.

SOME SPOILERS HERE.
No photos were allowed. I haven’t had a chance to proofread this, sorry, but I wanted to post before my brain flaked out–ran out of time on that …

October 23 I was in Toronto at the Winter Garden Theatre for JK Rowling’s only Canadian stop on her Open Book Tour. The Winter Garden Theatre is a magical place worthy of a Harry Potter setting. The balcony is adorn with tree branches and little glass lanterns hang from the ceiling. The boxes are decorated like a garden trellis and there’s a golden moon hanging over the corner of the stage.

There was a single, high-backed chair in the middle of the stage where JK Rowling sat.

She read for about 20 minutes–the part where Ron returns. I loved her reading and could have happily sat there all day listening to her. Rowling has definitely become a very confident reader. Her voice sounds strong and she does slight accents for each of the characters. It was fantastic.

Neil, her husband, was in the audience.

After Rowling read, she answered 12 questions from the audience. The 12 questioners were people who had won the Raincoast contest. I don’t remember her answers word for word, but here’s what I recall.

1. How did she come up with the idea for Quidditch?
JK Rowling laughed and said that she came up with the idea after a row with an ex-boyfriend. She came up with the idea of bludgers in particular.

She later said that Quidditch was definitely invented by a woman. Women are multi-taskers and Quidditch is a multi-task game. There’s more than one ball, it’s not like male games where there’s just one ball.

Rowling told a little story about the poor guy from Warner Brothers who had to figure out how to film Quidditch. He told her it doesn’t make sense.

2. Does Albus Porter ever see the portraits of his namesakes?
JK Rowling said that yes, as soon as he was in trouble, Albus would have been in the headmaster’s office and would have an opportunity to see the portraits of both Albus and Severus.

Quite the name, Albus Severus.

3. Asked by a boy who won the contest on the first day: Which part was the most difficult to write?
Character: Dobby

Jo quipped that Graham Green said “all authors must have a chip of ice in their heart”. She’s referring to writing Dobby’s death, which was so sad.

Rowling also said that the chapter where Harry marches to what he believes is his death was the hardest to write. She cried and cried. Um, I don’t think she was the only one. That was the worst thing to read ever. I was sobbing and had to take a break because I truly believed that was the end of Harry.

4. If you could be and animagus what would you be?
Rowling said that that is the fun thing about doing all the work to be an animagus–you don’t know what you’ll end up as. James was a stag but Peter was a rat–that should have tipped off his friends, no?

She said that if she could choose it would be an otter because she loves them, and that’s what she chose for Hermione. But she suspects that she’d be a big dog.

5. A librarian asked what books would be good for boy readers
Rowling said that although the Harry Potter series inspired boys to read that wasn’t her intention specifically. She was writing what she wanted to write.

She did tell a story about Bloomsbury asking her to be JK Rowling instead of Joanne because they felt the books would appeal to boys more if her name was ambiguous. Jo said they could have asked her to take the name Snotgrass and she would have because she was just so happy to have someone wanting to publish her work. When they asked her to use her initials though there was a slight problem, she did not have a middle name. She had to choose a middle name so she decided on Kathleen, after her favourite grandparent.

6. What magical object is her favourite?
Dumbledore’s pensive, and I have to agree. I’d love to own one.

Rowlling said it’s a fantastic way to go back into the past.

7. I can’t recall this question exactly but it was something about the encyclopedia.
Rowling said, yes the encyclopedia is coming but not for a while. She wants to do another book for charity. And she’d like a little break after Harry.

She did answer that George was going to be ok after the loss of Fred and that although Ron initially goes to the aurors office, he’s likely to go to help George in the shop.

8. Any advice for a budding celebrity?
A strange question to be sure. Who knows they are going to be a celebrity, let alone a budding celebrity? Anyway, Rowling said she never dreamt of being a celebrity. She said that we shouldn’t be seduced by celebrity and fame, unless that’s exactly what you’re after, but it’s about choice. She also joked that Paris is not returning her calls. Someone in the audience shouted out that she should.

It was a strange answer to a strange question but the basic sentiment was that Rowling is quite pleased with her money and celebrity but she choses to live a rather quite life and wants to avoid the pitfalls of celebrity.

9. How do you want to be remember 100 years from now?
Rowling said she was love to think that we’ll still be reading Harry Potter 100 years from now and that it would be great if we grow up and decide to read Harry to our kids.

10. Any regrets?
Plot and character-wise no. Chamber of Secrets and Order of the Phoenix were difficult to write because she had to be diffuse, but no regrets. There are times where she overused words and that makes her mad but really no regrets.

11. Is Malfoy in debted to Harry because Harry saved him from Crabbe’s fire?
Rowling said that no, Malfoy is not magically in Harry’s debt. Harry saving Malfoy is just an embarrassing mutual connection, which we get a peak at in the epilogue. Malfoy will resent Harry forever, in the same way that Snape and James resent each other.

12. If Harry Potter didn’t take off, what would she be doing?
“Weeping softly in a dark room.”

Rowling said that if the book was never published then she’d likely be teaching and writing. If it was published but didn’t become a success she would have still been delighted.

After the questions, we were called up row by row to have our books signed.

When it was my turn I told JK Rowling “thank you for coming to Canada”. I also said she was wearing a great pair of boots. “Prada!”

She was looking mighty sexy for a kids author. Rowling was wearing a brown shirt dress with brown Prada boots. She looked lovely. She signed my book. I skipped off the stage.

It was a great event and I am thrilled to pieces that I was able to go.