(no subject)

[blue_lotus13]

I forgot to mention one of the things that Richard Van Camp said in his opening banter. He talked about how he started writing because he was a reader and he didn't see anyone writing about his life. He grew up in a northern community. "No one was writing about going to school on a skidoo, or fighting in the snow," he said.

This is one of the main reasons why I want to write fiction. I read and I read, but I don't see my experiences. Very few people write about growing up in a mixed race family in a small city. I read and I read, but I never see myself.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know what Mr. Van Camp's talking about. Writing about wilderness living is as old as this country. Most Canadian children grow up on stories of the wilderness and small town life, whether it's Susanna Moodie, Catharine Parr Traill, Farley Mowat, Jack London, Roch Carrier--the list goes on and on.

Obviously, only a fraction of these books are about growing up as a First Nations person, but there's still plenty of those out there too.

Now, the mixed race topic has gotten less attention, certainly.

[blue-lotus.livejournal.com]

The point is that no one is writing about his kind of life. It's true that people have written about the wilderness, but not in a modern day context. Susanna Moodie wasn't writing about riding your skidoo to school, and then coming home to eat moose meat spaghetti and watch Degrassi Junior High. That's what he was getting at.

Darren, is this you?

How specific does he want to get?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
Yep, it's me, Darren. What are we talking about here? There's plenty of contemporary writing about the Canadian wilderness and rural life--David Macfarlane, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, plenty of others (it's not work that I seek out, so I'm admittedly short on names). If it's First Nations writers, Thomson Highway, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Thomas King immediately spring to mind.

That's not to mention Canadian television, which is (and has been for years) full of shows about growing up in small towns.

Not a big deal, but I don't think Richard's got a lot to complain about. DB.