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#60 Spring 2009

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Catherine Banks

Nova Scotian playwright Catherine Banks reveals what it’s like to capture the top Canadian literary award

This past November, Catherine Banks was awarded the 2008 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for Bone Cage. The play is the darkly humorous story of Jamie, a young man torn apart by the brutality of his job as a clear-cutter in rural Nova Scotia. Catherine recently took the time to answer some questions from Atlantic Books Today about life as a playwright.

KW: When did you first start to think about writing the play that became Bone Cage?

CB: In about 1997, I wrote a monologue that turned out to be Jamie’s final monologue of the play. It was like he did the high vault onto the page and he’s never left me since, although I didn’t actually write a first draft until about 2001.

KW: Was it a difficult process?

CB: It was difficult in that I had just started the play when another character, Rose from my one-woman play Bitter Rose, “showed up”, and so I detoured to write that play. That was a three-year process and then some personal things came up and I just couldn’t seem to get back to Jamie. I thought of him sometimes—he was always waiting by the river until one day he was in his car driving away. That’s when I knew I had to start writing.

KW: When you saw Bone Cage on stage, did it look and sound the way you imagined it would?

CB: I don’t actually imagine my plays on a stage. I imagine them in the location where they are taking place: by the river, in a kitchen, in an old empty house…. But, I’ve been very lucky because designers have created beautiful sets and lighting for my plays.

KW: How did you react when you heard you heard you were nominated for the Governor General’s Award?

CB: I was checking the Canada Council website at the appointed time that the list was scheduled to be posted because Angela Reberio, the retired publisher of Playwrights Canada Press, had convinced me that I might be on the list. Because the website was slow, I checked my email and there was an email from the Writers’ Fed of NS congratulating me. My daughter happened to be home so we screamed and hugged and hugged and screamed. Later in the day, I drove to Upper Stewiacke to tell my dear friend Leah—she had kept my babies many years ago so that I could write—that it was nominated. We sat in her kitchen and glowed. It really did feel enough to be nominated.

KW: How did you react when you learned you had won?

CB: Even though I had not for one moment considered that I would win, I did still look for the letter telling me “yes” or “no”. (I hadn’t taken in that the news would come in a phone call.) So I watched the mail. On the last possible day that I thought the letter would be here if I’d won, there was no letter in my mailbox when I came home from town and no special delivery notice pinned to my door. I knew I wasn’t going to win but still…. I walked into the house and there was a message from the Canada Council asking me to call ASAP. I called immediately, still thinking that they probably wanted to inform me that I hadn’t won, and then this beautiful voice said the incredible: “I have the honour of informing you that your play Bone Cage has been selected….”I was stunned. I was home alone, which was good because you aren’t allowed to tell anyone. Anyone. It was a pretty easy the first few days because I didn’t believe I had won. It got much harder later.

KW: What does being a GG award winner mean for your career as a playwright?

CB: I hope that it means more productions for Bone Cage. I think Governor General Award-winning plays are read by more artistic directors, and I have had some artistic directors be in touch about my work, which is exciting. I don’t know if I am exceptional in this, but I have had a lot of doubt around my choice to be a writer. Now I feel released from that feeling. (But perhaps that feeling will return.)

KW: How important has living in Nova Scotia been to the flavour of your work?

CB: Pretty important I think. I like writers who write about a very specific place. Quebec writers are my favourite authors and they write with a strong sense of place.

KW: Is your family supportive of what you do?

CB: Everyone is supportive up to a point—different tipping points for everyone, I suppose. But on some level, I think particularly around money, they think I’m nuts. My father is quoted as saying: “Playwrights live somewhere up under the eaves.” I asked him what that meant and he said something to the effect that playwrights can’t even afford a garret. That’s pretty funny. Still, when I did the production of Bone Cage, family members, including my former husband, donated money.

KW: Why do the stories you have to tell become plays rather than novels or poems or screenplays or…?

CB: I write plays and a few poems that I only show my most trusted friends. It isn’t that I slot something into a novel this month, a screenplay the next. I think in terms of plays almost always.

KW: What do people get out of reading a play in book format rather than watching it on stage?

CB: Plays are published to get them around the country and the world. Universities put them on course lists and they end up in libraries. Plus, I think they many of them are a beautiful read. Tennessee Williams’ plays for instance—you can savour his work when you read it. People often see a play once. Robert Bly says to read a poem aloud and at least twice. To paraphrase: The first time it [the poem] enters your brain. The second time it enters your heart. I think it is like that with a play—you can’t get it all in one sitting—at least a play that is rich in metaphor like Williams’ work.

KW: What are you working on now?

CB: I finished a new play called Missy and Me about a 49-year-old hairdresser obsessed with meeting Missy Elliot because she needs to ask her a question—not that she knows what the question is when she steals her husband’s plumbing van and heads for New York three days before her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It was really fun to write. Now I’m working on another one that I have probably talked about too much and so I won’t be able to write it. That’s the worse thing a writer can do, and I did it!

This article was originally published in the Spring 2009 issue of Atlantic Books Today

by

Jason Brown

Author Jason Brown reveals how numbers are connected to everyday life in Our Days Are Numbered: How Mathematics Orders Our Lives

At forty-seven years old, Jason Brown’s enthusiasm for mathematics (never math to this author) hasn’t diminished from boyhood.

“I wanted to promote the idea that mathematics is for everybody,” says Brown, a professor at Dalhousie University’s department of mathematics and statistics since 1994 (a specialist in graph theory and lover of networks—introductions to which you find in his new book). “It can benefit everyone.”

His belief remains steadfast, even as his interviewer shares painful memories of elementary, but especially high school, mathematics teachers, abandoning him and other strugglers and stragglers, while showering praise on the chosen ones in either-you-get-it-or-you-don’t zeal. Both early on in the book and in conversation, the author and teacher identifies this as a “quasi-religious” approach that has done more harm than good over time, a point he makes in the book too.

“It’s not difficult to teach to the top two per cent [of a class],” Brown says. He refers in the book to troubling conversations he’s had with teachers currently working in the school system.

In his writing, Brown directly addresses all ranks of that leftover 98 per cent. “Everyone deserves to learn these things,” he says.

Each set of Brown’s problems and solutions builds on the last – cumulatively. In conversation, he suggests this cumulative learning is unique to math; that “in history or English you can miss a part or a book and not get behind.” Of course, this is debatable, considering, for example, the influence of immigrant communities on the two European solitudes of CanLit to the transformation of Canada’s military role in international conflict.

Using dry wit to gentle humour, storytelling (drawing on entertaining scenes from his life with his wife and two sons), knowledge of pop culture, daily news and current social issues and concerns—all told, a grounding in the here and now—Brown engages all readers to stick with him, even those who may not ever share his enthusiasm for the mathematical content and must constantly flip back and forth (though he includes chapter and page references to make that easier). One is constantly reminded of the person behind these pages, showing his work.

The book’s structure, he continues, unfolds as “a walk through a day in my life – not in the life,” Brown says, with a chuckle.

The reference is to a song, “A Day in the Life,” by Brown’s favourite band, The Beatles. The professor continues to gain international acclaim and trigger debate over his mathematical analysis of the Fab Four’s music, going back to his original work decoding George Harrison’s opening chord in “A Hard Day’s Night.” The idea to write Our Days Are Numbered, Brown says, grew out of that research.

Within the book’s structure, which cuts between anecdotes of daily life and mathematical problems arising from the everyday, Brown devotes a chapter to music, particularly that of The Beatles, in chapter twelve, “Sex, Math and Rock and Roll.” This is where he sets out to prove how our brains are “hard-wired” to operate mathematically when listening to music.

“There’s a unique aspect to The Beatles: unlike so many bands from that era, their music is still cool,” says Brown, a musician himself, adding, “The [Rolling] Stones’ music doesn’t warrant this.”

Of course, this claim is a mix of personal preference and professional discipline. Brown makes a value judgment (part of what goes into what mathematicians call “utility function,” discussed in Chapter Six, “Chance, Decisions and the Fear Factor”) about The Beatles’ music being worthy because it bears his own profession’s analysis.

But one wonders: is a certain type of music, or, for that matter, any other decision or solution to a problem (he examines everything from home decorating and renovations to figuring out food labels) more worthy because it can be rendered mathematically? This is a question going to the very premise of Our Days Are Numbered. Whether Brown’s convincing in his argument depends on the reader.

The Beatles warrant more consideration because it satisfies a mathematical curiosity along with being an individual choice for Brown. But there’s just as much value in looking at the cumulative progress of rock history.

An avid music fan, who’s closely read music journalism and literature over the years, and not spent time applying math to rock and roll, would know that the Stones were considered the darker, more dangerous version of The Beatles when both first emerged in the ’60s and for the Stones, the reputation stuck with them for a long time.

How does one convey, explain or measure that sense of danger? Can a solution or proof—an absolute statement on the nature of its creation—be found and explained to others?

The point is about choice: some may choose other analytical sources of thought (history, literature and visual art, including work that doesn’t necessarily adhere to mathematical rules or principles, as Brown discusses in chapter eleven, “Nature, Art and Fractals”) over math in understanding the world and engaging in argument or discourse.

Brown acknowledges the validity of such choices, saying the mathematician must accept other approaches and that “everyone has their own values.” But, adds Brown, “I can’t help but see mathematics everywhere.”

This article was originally published in the Spring 2009 issue of Atlantic Books Today

by

Frye bobblehead-675x450

Canada’s only bilingual, international literary festival celebrates 10 decades with 10 days of festivities in honour of literary critic Northrop Frye

Some of Canada’s finest literary talents will be in Moncton next month to help celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Frye Festival.

Miriam Toews, Wayne Johnston, Jane Urquhart, John Ralston Saul and Antoine Maillet are among the many authors, poets, screenwriters, critics and illustrators that will take part in ten days of readings, workshops, debates, dialogues and round-table discussions from April 17 to 26, 2009 in and around New Brunswick’s ‘Hub City.’

“We have a full slate of amazing events scheduled for our diamond anniversary,” says festival chair Dawn Arnold. “If you had told me when we first started that we would be enjoying the kind of success that we are today, I would not have believed you.”

NB illiteracy quoteFormed in 1999, the festival was originally conceived to commemorate a man who had risen from humble roots to become one of the country’s most renowned thinkers. “Northrop Frye spent his formative years in Moncton,” says Arnold. “It was here that he honed the ideas that would later shape his commitment to an informed and civil society.”

She points out that the event’s mandate has remained the same since its inception. “Frye was a man who was passionate about education and ideas through literature. Since day one, the festival has tried to honour that vision by promoting the pleasure and discovery of reading by bringing together local, national and international authors with public audiences of all ages, and creating an annual bilingual celebration of words.”

With a wealth of activities planned over the 10 days, the festival will effectively take over the region’s schools, cafés, restaurants, bars, theatres, shopping malls and libraries, making it one of Canada’s premier literary events,

“That’s pretty amazing for a non-profit organization with only one full-time, paid staff member,” smiles Arnold. “Thankfully, we have many wonderful volunteers who are committed to making this happen.”

And while the festival’s mandate may not have changed over the past decade, its methodology is a constant work-in-progress. “Each year we add a little more to our mainstay program of author readings, evaluating what works and what needs to be tweaked.”

She points out that, as in previous years, this year’s festival will again make a concerted effort to reach out to young people through author visits to local and area high schools. “New Brunswick’s functional illiteracy rates are sixty per cent and sixty-eight per cent (Anglophone, Francophone respectively) so the impact of this interaction is enormous. As long as illiteracy excludes anyone from access to knowledge and the world of ideas, our whole community is diminished.”

Students are also invited to get creative through both a writer’s contest and the Cafe Underground program, where they can perform their own creations in a public setting. “Every year I am just blown away by some of the stuff that the kids come up with,” laughs Arnold. “It is a real joy to see them shine so brightly.”

As incentive, thousands of dollars worth of cash prizes and new books will be handed out to the participants.

Other activities for young people include daily workshops, a Saturday morning “Kids Fest”, a “community read” and the “Pop et Frye” series that aims to bridge the gap between contemporary culture and literature. “Our thinking is that we are planting the seeds of future literacy by keeping our kids interested in reading,” says Arnold.

Mr. Frye quoteAlong with the deep cultural footprint, the festival will also have an impact on the local economy.

With between 10,000—15,000 people expected to attend the ten-day event, it is forecasted that the festivities will bring more than $3 million into Moncton’s coffers. “Our restaurants, bars, cafes, retail stores and hotels are likely to be very, very busy,” says the city’s Mayor George LeBlanc. “The Frye Festival is further proof that we can compete with cities like Halifax and St. John’s when it comes to the arts. Furthermore, it serves to remind people that we are a unique and world-class destination.”

Arnold cherishes the opportunity to give back to her community.

“I love Moncton and I love literature,” she smiles. “Put those two things together and you can understand why I am grateful to be involved. This not only helps to keep us on the cultural map and provides a financial windfall for the city, but is also good for the spirit of the community. Everyone benefits from this, especially the local residents who seem to thrive on extending their hospitality.”

She is also humbled by the chance to carry the message of literacy. “Mr. Frye firmly believed in literature as an avenue for education and ideas. That is his legacy and it is what his namesake festival is truly all about.”

For complete schedule and ticket information please visit www.frye.ca

Stephen Patrick Clare is a freelance writer and musician living in Halifax.