Sad times for writers in Canada

A writing friend just sent me this email with this article that Margaret Atwood wrote. I found it quite disturbing and I also feel at a loss. What can I do? What can we do? We can't give up, that's for sure. As I already told you, I'm teaching a class on children's writing at the Alexander Writing Centre and it has become the highlight of my week. I love the people in the class (Tina, Kim, Glennys, Lynn, Anne-Ina and Pam) and their enthusiasm for writing. It's contagious. We have these wonderful conversations and the passion in the room is incredible. As I drove home last night, I kept thinking, I can't wait for next Monday and my class again. Why do so many politicians think that what we writers do is nothing? Because it's not. We create stories that people read, promoting literacy. Why is this viewed as not worthy of money? I'll probably stew on this all day. What do you think about this? All material copyright Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved.Why did the Conservatives take the weed whacker to Canadian arts promotion abroad? asks MARGARET ATWOODDuring the last days of September, I was at a trilingual literary festival in Vincennes, near Paris. It's called Festival America: Littératures et Cultures d'Amérique du Nord. It was Canada's year of honour, so there were 26 Canadian writers there, as opposed to two Cubans, four Mexicans, and 24 Americans. The festival was attended by 23,000 people over three days, and generated a million mentions of Canada in the French press.The Canadian Embassy staff in Paris did a lot of work for the festival but the embassy didn't spend much money. It couldn't even afford to throw its own reception. Thus it was while attending the U.S. Embassy's reception for its own authors that I first heard an astonishing fact: The Canadian government had just cut every penny once budgeted for the promotion of Canadian artists abroad.That's it -- every penny, for everything cultural and Canadian, around the world. Some of those pennies have now been "unfrozen" but they're not enough to save the programs and networks that have been built up over the past 40 years (in part by art-savvy Tory cabinet ministers such as Flora MacDonald, Marcel Masse and Barbara McDougall). Staff remain in place, but they can't do much. It's like a dance floor with no more dancers.Not that there were that many pennies to begin with. The amounts of money removed were minute -- a fraction of a fraction of a per cent of Canada's federal budget. And the Harper government had just posted a $13-billion surplus. So why had they taken this bizarre step?The axing of culture abroad is even stranger when you consider the following facts: The money generated by Canadian-based artists' works that sell abroad flows into the country and is taxed here, a net gain to the economy. The arts and creative industries in Europe now earn "more than double the cash produced by European car-makers and contribute more to the economy than the chemical industry, property or the food and drink business," according to The Independent of Dec. 26. There are comparable statistics for Canada -- some say $40-billion, but even if it were half that it wouldn't be a number to blow off easily. Or so you'd think.So why had the Conservatives taken the weed whacker to Canadian arts promotion abroad? Was it just part of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's shoot-first, ask-afterwards habit -- familiar now to anyone with money in an income trust -- of slicing the heads off anything in sight, leaving the mangled stems to be dealt with by later regimes?Due to the impenetrability of Fortress Harper -- colder than the Kremlin, more secret than the Inquisition -- it was unlikely we'd get any answers. But we are still free to speculate, so here's what I came up with to explain why they did it:1) Ignorance. The Harperites have no idea how much money the arts generate.2) Willed ignorance. They've seen the figures, but have labelled them "junk economics" in the same way they once labelled global-warming statistics as "junk science."3) Hatred. The Harper Conservatives think artists are a bunch of whiners who don't have real jobs, and that any money spent on the arts is a degenerate frill.4) Frugality. There's lots of arts around. We can get them cheaper from across the border than it costs to make them here, and if you've seen one art, you've seen them all.5) Stupidity. They thought they were gassing a hornet's nest, not poking it with a stick.6) More hatred. They tried to slash local museums, until too many people screamed. They've cut the Canada Council top-up proposed by the Liberals down to a sixth of its size. They've stuck the knife into the National Literacy Program, perhaps on the theory that they won't be able to set up a working dictatorship if too many people can read. And that's just for starters. If these things can be done in a minority government, lo, I say unto you, what things shall be done in a majority?The banner under which the Conservatives have been ditching stuff that displeases them has been "waste." They're trashing programs that "don't work." They want things that "get results." (That went for the environmental plans they once binned, and have now hastily revivified.) Arts promotion is like supporting entrepreneurs, or local hockey teams, or school systems. But how do we define "results" in relation to the arts? And what exactly does "work" mean? Does it mean that money must flow back in the same year it's invested? If so, the Conservatives should get rid of all primary education, since no 10-year-old marches right out of Grade Five and gets an executive job.Typically, cultural money is arranged so that younger artists who need to build their audiences can piggyback on old poops like me who have already done that. That's how you support the next generation, and the one after that. Not to do so is truly wasteful. Yes, you might save a lot of money by killing all the children: You'd cancel those pesky education expenses. But you wouldn't survive long as a society.But maybe the Harper Conservatives don't want a society in which the arts and the creative industries are important. Maybe they don't want the jobs in those fields to exist. Maybe, as in so many other areas of their thinking, they want to turn back the clock to the good old days -- some time back in the golden fifties, when there wasn't all this bilingualism and multiculturalism, or indeed any lingualism or culturalism at all, and most Canadian artists left the country, and those who remained could be referred to jokingly in Parliament as a bunch of fruits jumping around in long underwear.That's a lot of maybes. But maybes are all we have in the absence of any coherent cultural policy or even any explanation for the lack of one. Who was it said that there's more culture in a cup of yoghurt than in the Harper Conservatives? Let's hope that person was wrong.Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 40 volumes of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her latest is a collection of short stories, Moral Disorder.

Writing talk

I taught my first class at Alexander Writing Centre last night and it was stimulating and rewarding. The group of women (no men signed up) are all at different stages in their writing which is wonderful. They will all be able to set their own goals. To me it was thrilling to listen to them talk so passionately about their stories. The group has great dynamics and I'm already thinking of next week, sitting around the room, talking writing. What a treat for me who sometimes works in a vacuum. I've also been asked to do a career day at Western High School and a literacy/motivational conference at a school in Calgary. As a writer, (I'm in that darn editing process right now), I enjoy getting out into the real world, meeting students, adults who share something similiar. Books and reading is still so much a part of our lives. In my opinion, books can co-exist with Nintendo and TV. So, keep asking me to do things folks, I'm game and just love being in rooms where people are passionate and you can feel the electricity surrounding the written word.

The Journey

This writing life sometimes seems like a long journey. You know the car ride when you were little, where you sat in the back seat and kept saying, "Are we there yet?" But I don't think with writing we ever really get there. You only reach levels then you push on to reach a new level. There are days when I feel as if it's going along smooth sailing then there are days where it feels a bit still. Waiting is a part of the game and so are highs and lows. I'm waiting right now for word on three books. One might sell and two might get rejected or all three could sell or....no, I won't go there. No matter what, when that rejection comes in there is a thud in my heart. But now, I refuse to let the thud take over my heart. I let it thud then I push it aside. Because, in the end though, the highs always outweigh the lows. I got a note from a man in Penticton, Walter Huebert, he's a retired secondary school teacher. The note was hand written on a cue card and this is what it said: "On December 7th, I presented your autographed books to four of my grandchildren. They immediately began reading. As is was the day of their annual excursion to pick out a Christmas tree at a local tree farm, they jumped into the truck. They continued reading on the way. As soon as they picked out the tree and had hot chocolate they ran back to the truck to continue reading. As it was getting dark they continued to read as soon as they got home. You certainly brought enjoyment to four "kids." Thanks." Okay, so how can let any rejection ride over that note. It's by my desk. I'm starting something new in this writing business tonight. I'm teaching a class on Writing for Children at the Alexander Center here in Calgary. I'm thrilled they asked me and even more thrilled that we got enough people for it to go. I'll let you know how it goes. Another high perhaps!

What I read when I was a kid!!

Hi everyone, I'm back from Europe. We had an amazing time in Paris. I was there with my two daughters and we did so much in two days. We went to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Saint Chapelle, Notre Dame and walked along the Seine River and ate and....shopped. Of course we shopped. We went in every designer store and pretended we were rich and famous. It was a wonderful trip and we kept pinching ourselves because we were in PARIS. But I'm home to cold weather and writing. I'm back pounding the key board, working on a children's novel that is geared for grrades 1-3. And loving it! An early reader. I've never written for this age group so I thought it would be a challenge. You know, short and sweet is harder than you think because of the pacing. You have no time to drone on and on. My book is about a a girl named Dana who takes dance classes. I'm using dance because my one daughter dances so...the research is all there. If it sells, if it becomes a series, it will be the Dancing Dana series. I like Dana, she's a bit naughty and mischievious. I was telling my author friend Deborah Nicholson (she writes great mystery novels) about this book and we started into a conversation about what we read as kids. She didn't relate to the Bobbsey Twins or Nancy Drew because they were a bit too unreal. I liked Trixie Beldon. She was my favourite. Her and her friend Honey who was rich and beautiful. But Trixie wasn't. I read every one of those books. And I loved Anne of Green Gables and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe series although I do remember not finishing the last few books in that series. I liked the first book best. And I read all the Hardy Boy books. And of course I read Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little and the Little House on the Prairie books. I also read a series about a nurse and for the life of me I can't remember her name. Cherry Ames? Does that sound familiar? I was a reader for sure. I can remember my mom taking us to the library. I loved the smell. (Now I take my kids to Chapters or McNally's to buy books. Hmm. Will the coffee smell be there memory?) And on Friday's I would walk down to the street corner and take out books at the Bookmobile. I loved the Bookmobile and would spend hours in there. Sometimes they would kick me out. I've always been a big reader but you know when I look at my roots, I read a lot of mysteries. Maybe that's why I've gravitated to writing mysteries as well as my sports books. I also was a real jock and loved sports. Maybe that's why I write sports books. When I do school presentations and kids ask me what they can do to become a writer, I always say, "Be a reader."