Roger LemoyneOn June 2, 2011, demonstrators in Tahrir Square rest on the tracks of a tankToday marks the first anniversary of the protest movement that forced Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (and his attendant thugs) from power. Last year, journalist Paul Wilson, a former editor of The Walrus, travelled to Tahrir Square and its environs to report on the state of the Egyptian people for the magazine. Here, he reflects on what change has come to the country — and what remains to be done.
JULIE BALDASSI: In 1989, you witnessed anti-Communist revolutions in Eastern Europe; decades later, you travelled to Cairo to write about the Arab Awakening for The Walrus (“Adrift on the Nile,” October 2011). Did you participate in these revolutions as an activist, as well as a journalist? Do you think it’s possible, and furthermore, important, to be non-partisan and objective as a journalist?
PAUL WILSON: I think you have to keep those two aspects — the activist and the journalist — separate when you’re on the job, otherwise readers will have a reason not to trust you. It’s something deeply embedded in the culture of Western journalism: there’s a powerful taboo against reporting on something you’re personally involved in. That’s the territory of memoir, not reportage.
But it’s a professional separation, not a personal one. It doesn’t preclude your sympathizing with — or viscerally opposing — a cause you are writing about. When you’re reporting a story as complicated, as far-reaching, and as full of huge, life-changing emotions as the collapse of communism or the Arab Awakening, you need to be open to many different sources of information, because what you’re after — what you’re trying to give the reader — is a complex understanding of what’s happening. Sympathy, the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes, is a tool of understanding. So is scepticism. I see objectivity in journalism as more of a technique than an ideal state of mind. In any story of importance, it’s almost impossible to be truly objective. But telling the story is always more interesting and engaging, and probably closer to the truth, if you do your best to represent its different sides. (more…)
Donna HolsteinSteve RubinQuillcast is a podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, U.S. publishing executive Steve Rubin discusses the art of creating bestsellers in an industry in flux.
Rubin started his book-publishing career in 1984 as an executive editor at Bantam Books. In 1990, he was appointed president and publisher of Doubleday, and by 1995 was based in London as chairman and CEO of Bantam Doubleday Dell International. In 2009, he joined Henry Holt & Company as president and publisher. The authors he has published include John Grisham (The Firm), Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), and Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall).
Rubin was in Toronto last year as a guest of the International Visitors Programme, which runs in conjunction with Toronto’s International Festival of Authors. He delivered this keynote to a packed house of industry professionals from Canada and around the world.
Listen to the episode here, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund. Thank you to Juan Opitz, who generously recorded this podcast in his studio.
Ninety minutes of lively, thought-provoking ideas featuring: Edward Burtynsky, Douglas Coupland, Mark Kingwell, Lisa Moore, Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Noah Richler, Chris Turner, and Aritha van Herk.
“I have the right to write about my life.” — Marie Calloway
Lately, a confusing debate has erupted over the validity of what is being called “confessional writing,” the kind that places its author and its author’s intimate experiences at the centre of the narrative. The modern confessional exists in transparent opposition to objective writing, where the writer is removed and reports narrative facts largely without opinion, and definitely without feeling. The proliferation of online sites that facilitate impromptu personal writing has cultivated a belief among the status quo that serious writers shouldn’t share an “excess” of personal details or opinions, lest they risk a public shaming. It’s certainly not uncommon in the Internet age to see a personal piece met with a clumsy, trolling comment chorus of “Keep that to yourself,” “TMI” or “Why should I care about your life?”
Additional indictments hurled at confessional writing are that it’s boring or embarrassing, although for whom is not entirely clear. Some critics have concluded that it is without exception bad writing, unworthy of publication, blanketing the form with disdain in hopes it will be forced back into the writer’s private documents folder. By even referring to it as a confession suggests that the author has done something wrong, that there is a central sin they should be repenting; at times, it seems the sin is merely in the act of telling: “How dare they?”
Exactly what differentiates the loathed confession from the lauded personal essay is difficult to name. But it’s impossible to ignore that a majority of these controversial and oft-dismissed confessions are being written by women — primarily young, under-published outsiders accused of lacking the self-awareness that presumably comes with age. The complaints suffered are often of the gendered variety, suggesting a naïveté on the part of the authors to be proud of documenting and distributing their experiences, much like web cam self-portraits posted on Facebook. The suggestion is that they are boring, reprehensible, or invalid in some way, and should never see the light of day. (more…)
Juan Opitz and Rosemary SullivanQuillcast is a podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, Governor General’s Literary Award–winning author and poet Rosemary Sullivan speaks about her first children’s book, Molito, co-written with her husband, musician Juan Opitz, and illustrated by her sister, Colleen.
Known for her biographies of Margaret Atwood and Gwendolyn MacEwen, Sullivan is currently working on Stalin’s Daughter, a biography of Svetlana Stalina, which will be published in 2014 by HarperCollins Canada.
Listen to the episode here, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund. Thank you to Juan Opitz, who generously recorded this podcast in his studio.
©2011 Estate of Jack Chambers; estate represented by Loch GalleryJack Chambers, Self-Portrait No. 2 (1953)“Do we have more than four people? This is Jack Chambers, for God’s sake!”
These are the words of a bewildered Art Gallery of Ontario foot soldier, uttered moments before the nearly media-less media preview for Jack Chambers: Light, Spirit, Time, Place, and Life, the gallery’s expansive tribute to Canada’s best-known artist outside the Group of Seven. I was surprised too — Chambers should not be a tough sell.
In the ’70s, Chambers became the highest-earning painter in Canadian history and the closest thing to a Continental master this country had ever seen. He also defied nature by fighting acute myeloblastic leukemia — a cancer that kills in about three months if untreated — for ten years. Chambers was a spiritual locomotive fuelled by love for his wife and two sons. He worked constantly to ensure their financial security. The artist churned out dozens of jewels in his London, Ontario studio, only to sell them immediately. In her essay “Unfinished Business” — about Chambers’ incomplete masterpiece, Lunch — from the January/February issue of The Walrus, Sara Angel writes that he was a man of immense passion. Until death, he “remained keen to stay a part of the world he had rendered.” So, had the media lost its mind? (more…)
Clark Blaise, pictured with his wife, Bharati Mukherjee, in their California homeQuillcast is a podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, recorded during Toronto’s International Festival of Authors in October, Catherine Bush interviews Clark Blaise about his career and the writing life.
Blaise recently released his first new short story collection in nearly two decades. Shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, The Meagre Tarmac (Biblioasis) is a collection of linked stories exploring various characters from the South Asian diaspora. Bush is coordinator of the University of Guelph’s creative writing MFA program and the author of three novels, including Claire’s Head.
Listen to the episode here, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.
Greystone BooksQuillcast is a new podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, the second in a two-part series on non-fiction authors, Vancouver writer Charlotte Gillspeaks about her experiences as a professional tree-planter, the subject of her memoir Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe (Greystone Books), one of Q&Q’s 2011 books of the year.
Eating Dirt was shortlisted for the inaugural Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction, and was recently longlisted for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.
Listen to the episode here, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. And click here to view a slideshow of Charlotte’s life as a tree planter.
Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.
Christopher WahlElena Lobsonova and Guillaume Côté in Romeo and JulietLast week, the National Ballet of Canada hosted a world premiere. This was a big deal nationally and, remarkably, a big deal internationally. The ballet was Romeo and Juliet, choreographed anew by Alexei Ratmansky — recently called “the most sought-after man in ballet” by The New Yorker. It was a moment for the National Ballet to celebrate.
Ballet fans have come to expect a lot from any Romeo and Juliet production. Prokofiev’s famous, gorgeous score has been around since the 1930s, and is so dramatic that it has been choreographed at least seven times already. Since 1964, the NBC had performed John Cranko’s interpretation, which has been alternately described as “beloved” and “perfect.” Did the company need another Romeo and Juliet? Don’t audiences know the story anyways? Didn’t West Side Story’s “Gym Mambo” capture everything dance had to tell us about star-crossed young lovers?
“The Cranko version’s well loved and adored for many good reasons, but it was created fifty years ago, for a different generation of artists,” says Karen Kain, the Ballet’s artistic director. “I’m running a vibrant cultural institution that has to reflect today.” (more…)
Frank NoelkerTom, one of the chimpanzees featured in Andrew Westoll’s The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary. Click here to read “My Time With the Chimps,” Andrew’s series of posts for The Walrus BlogWelcome back to Quillcast, a new podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, the first in a two-part series on non-fiction authors, Andrew Westoll speaks about his experience writing The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary (HarperCollins Canada).
Andrew Westoll is a Toronto journalist and former primatologist. In The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary, which was recently longlisted for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and named one of Q&Q’s 2011 books of the year, he writes about a group of chimpanzees living out their last days in a Quebec animal sanctuary after enduring years as the subjects of medical testing.
Listen to the episode here, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. And click here to view a slideshow of the Fauna Sanctuary chimps.
Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.
According to a new survey, Toronto is the country’s least-liked city. This comes as no surprise. In The Walrus’s November cover story, “How Toronto Lost Its Groove,” John Lorinc shows Canada that its most mega metropolis indeed has a problem, but it ain’t Rob Ford. Lorinc wisely avoids the reductive “blame the mayor” argument by which many Torontonians (myself included) have been so easily seduced. Toronto’s plight comes from decades of narrow vision, relapses in policy tragedy, and the mass mediation of misinformation. So who’s to blame? Well, everyone. Lorinc reveals that what lies behind Toronto’s curtain is not a man but a mirror. That is, Torontonians past and present, urban and suburban, are responsible for the city’s current state. This is not a point of despair: if we have the power to hurt Toronto, we have the power to nurture it as well.
Implicit in Lorinc’s piece is that there exists a morally Good way to run this city, one guided by empathy, reason, and foresight, or as I call it, virtue. Intuitively, we know the city can be better; if we fostered and internalized this virtue, then Toronto would take care of itself. However, although we are bound by the knowledge that civic virtues exist, we rarely comport ourselves accordingly.
Frank Cunningham is the former director of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethics and a senior advisor at the school’s Cities Centre, a multi-disciplinary research institute with the mandate to network and embolden cities of the world; promoting civic virtues is his life. I met Cunningham as a second-year U of T student enrolled in his introductory philosophy course. The professor was forward: “If you don’t read any of the material,” he said, “you can still come out of this class with a solid B!” I later realized that this joke was an inverted lesson about reflection, the day-to-day thinking that drives us to do meaningful things. (“Reflection involves the always incomplete attempt to make sense of who we are, trying all the while to live better,” committed Torontonian Mark Kingwell has argued.) During the course’s last lecture, Cunningham encouraged us to visit him should we want to continue the discussion about virtue. Four years later, I took up his offer. (more…)
Jahanbegloo.comRamin Jahanbegloo, a dual Canadian-Iranian citizen who has been described in the media as “the Gandhi of Iran,” was arrested in 2006 while leaving Tehran for a conference in Brussels. The University of Toronto politics professor spent the next four months in Iran’s notorious Evin House of Detention; his captors accused him of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government. “They said ‘You’ve been preparing a velvet revolution, a soft revolution.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? I’ve never written about soft revolution.’ They took it from there,” Jahanbegloo told The Hour’s George Stroumboulopoulos in 2008. At the time of his arrest, to be a Canadian in Iran was to be considered a spy, he explained.
Jahanbegloo, who espouses a philosophy of nonviolence, once ran an independent research center in Iran. He invited scholars and intellectuals from all over the world to visit, including Richard Rorty, Timothy Garton Ash, Antonio Negri, and Michael Ignatieff. During his incarceration, people such as Noam Chomsky, J.M. Coetzee, Shirin Ebadi, Umberto Eco, Jürgen Habermas, Leszek Kolakowski, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Howard Zinn demanded his immediate release.
“There were no names I could give,” Jahanbegloo told the New York Times in 2007. “I could give only names of philosophers. There was no way I could reveal any secrets. There were no secrets.” (more…)
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