Exile

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You can find this in True Confessions | Written by Rosalynn on March 9, 2010

In case you’re wondering about the tardiness, brevity, or absence of posts from me for the next little while, it’s because I’ve been sent here—TNQ’s Ancillary Workspace, the location of which is Ultra Top Secret, hidden even from Google maps like Dick Cheney’s house—and I’m not allowed out until I’ve got proofs of the List Issue.

Okay, okay, it’s just my kitchen table, and there’s a door leading directly outdoors to the left there. I can come and go as I please; the exile is totally self-imposed.  I like to work at home, when possible, on two kinds of tasks:

a) Super Tricky Ones, like writing and some parts of layout. I’m the sort of person who needs relative quiet in order to really concentrate. Also, when I get frustrated, I like having the freedom to wander around the house, stretch, swear, snack, etc.

b) Super Easy Ones, like scanning a folder full of stuff, for which I need to play my music loud (and quite possibly sing along, tunelessly, while dancing in my chair). I could probably do this in the office if Kim is the only other one there—she has that ‘mom skill’ of being able to completely tune out extraneous noise/ignore really annoying behaviour—but I’m too easily embarrassed to test it.

I’ve tried using headphones in the office: so long as there are no lyrics, I can listen to music while figuring out something tricky, and I can, though it’s difficult, refrain from dancing/singing while doing the tediously easy stuff. The system totally works, except that when Melissa wants my attention she pelts me with paper clips, and sometimes Kim doesn’t turn around when she’s talking to me (my desk is behind hers) so she doesn’t know I can’t hear her, and ends up repeating herself, which makes me feel badly…so it’s not an ideal situation.

All the tasks that fall somewhere in between those poles—which is about 80% of my job—I can do at TNQ, and I hope to return by Friday, having completed a raft of Tricky items in my little fortress of solitude here. Wish me luck!

TWS Getting Published Guide

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You can find this in TNQ Recommends | Written by Rosalynn on March 8, 2010

Writer Ayelet Tsabari, a graduate of SFU’s Writing Studio program, has written a detailed guide on how to submit your work to literary magazines: she covers everything, from what to put in your cover letter to what to do with your rejection letters, and in this managing editor’s humble opinion, totally nails it. Of course, I learned a few things as well—for example, I was enthralled (and no, I’m not exaggerating!) by the description of Event’s manuscript selection process, which sounds a helluva lot more efficient than ours.

And did I mention that this guide is completely free? Click here for your copy.

Generation X by Douglas Coupland

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You can find this in Canadian Book Challenge, Lists Issue Countdown, Reading, TNQ Recommends | Written by Rosalynn on March 5, 2010

Countdown to the Lists Issue: This is the first of a series of posts celebrating the ‘lure of lists’ from now until the day the Lists Issue of TNQ is mailed (hopefully, about six weeks from now!). My review of Generation X, book number 11 in my Great Canadian Book Challenge, in three lists:

3 Things I love about Generation X:

1. The vocabulary in the margins.He’s invented words and phrases for feelings I’ve had and things I’ve seen that I probably couldn’t describe in a paragraph. Eg: Clique Maintenance: the need of one generation to see the generation following it as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego. “Kids today do nothing. They’re so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All they do is shop and complain.”

I’m not sure which is more annoying: hearing someone say this about my generation, or someone my age saying it about the next, but I’ve experienced both so often, I’ve felt the need for this phrase for a really long time. There are many other examples, and if I made a list, this post would be way too long: I suppose you’ll have to read it and make your own!

2. How deliciously ironic it all is. For days after finishing it, I found myself narrowing my eyes and tilting my head to the left, viewing my life from a similarly appraising and, I must say, highly amusing, distance.

3. The dialogue. These people speak in full paragraphs; they tell each other extremely well composed, inventive stories and anecdotes. For example:

He telephoned: “You’d love it here, Andy. Scotty’s Junction is where atom bomb scientists, mad with grief over their spawn, would come and get sloshed in the Ford saloon cars in which they’d then crash and burn in the ravine; afterward, the little desert animals came and ate them. So tasty. So biblical. I love desert justice.”

“You dink. I’ve been working double shift because of your leaving unannounced.”

I wish I had conversations like these with people I know. Read more »

The Lists Issue: Countdown to mailing day

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You can find this in The New Quarterly (our print mag) | Written by Rosalynn on March 4, 2010

“There is no limit to the lure of lists. Humbly indispensable in everyday life and yet also one of the most enduring forms in literature, functioning as either a formal device or thematic element or both, the list is an unlimited structure.” So says Diane Schoemperlen, Guest Editor of our Spring issue on—you guessed it—lists!

As a compulsive maker of lists, I’ve been looking forward to this issue for what feels like forever (in reality, about a year). I’m receiving the files to layout this week and, unless I want to explain in a year’s worth of grant apps and financial statements why we fell behind schedule—and I’ve been there, done that, don’t wanna do it again—it must be mailed to our subscribers before the end of April. So, the countdown is on! To keep myself accountable (and energized), once a week until Mailing Day, I’ll be doing a list-style post, and possibly a bit of sneak-preview/progress reportage. With the exception of this week’s post, the subjects of these lists are very much TBD; suggestions are very welcome. (I’m aiming for a total of six posts, including the one on Mailing Day; my fingers are crossed and sleeves are rolled up.)

Wish me luck! And if any of our List Issue contributors are reading this, please watch your email inboxes for near-nonsensical messages from me over the next few weeks involving the following words and acronyms: proof, resolution, corrections, line, dpi, contract, urgent, paragraph, asap, omg, pdf…

While our leader has given no indication that he reads,

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You can find this in Literary Diversions, Reading | Written by Melissa on March 3, 2010

Yann Martel has received a letter from the US President, who expressed his appreciation for Martel’s Life of Pi. Hand written, in fact. Martel informed Stephen Harper of this thoughtful gesture in his most recent one-way correspondence with the Prime Minister.

What amazes me is the gratuity of it. As you would know, there is a large measure of calculation in what public figures do. But here, what does he gain? I’m not a US citizen. In no way can I be of help to President Obama

I don’t want to get into what Harper’s silence says, because I’m sure you, dear reader, have developed the critical thinking skills that make enjoying an engaging piece of literature possible. I just wanted to point out that Canadian Literature is appreciated by the president of the United States, and to draw attention, once again, to Yann’s cheeky project, What is Stephen Harper Reading, in which he attempts to expand the mind of our leader by sending him works of literature bi-weekly. Yann’s taking a break for 4 months, during which time mystery authors will fill his stead. I can’t wait to read who.

TNQ HQ: almost as good as mixed cereal

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You can find this in TNQ Out & About, The New Quarterly (our print mag) | Written by Melissa on March 2, 2010

TNQ had a brief visit from Rebecca Rosenblum (TNQ Issues 107, 110) this morning, who came to University of Waterloo to give a reading from her collection of short stories. We took the opportunity to drink fancy coffees at the coffee shop from which we picked her up, and heard all about the teaching work that she is doing in Toronto high schools in partnership with Descant magazine before bringing her back to TNQ HQ.

Kim has told us many a story about people’s faces falling when they walk into the New Quarterly office, expecting a big glamorous office, and finding this (which is quite an improvement over our previous space, actually). So I asked Rebecca to give us her impressions before she left. She said something to the effect of:

It was very lovely and bright, and the [St. Jarome's University] cafeteria lets you fill up a bowl with all the different kinds of cereal.

So there you have it. TNQ is so glamorous that when pressed, people talk about cereal.

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