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Ep. #132: Christine Fellows

Christine Fellows lives in Winnipeg, MB and is one of the world’s best songwriters. She is an adventurous and compelling storyteller and a gifted musician who brings her work into other disciplines for really cool collaborations. Her sixth album also includes her first book of poetry; both are called Burning Daylight and were released by ARP Books on September 23. Here, Christine and I discuss things like how good looking Kyle at Milagro Mercer Mexican Cantina in Toronto is, secret menu items and difficult customers, good Toronto food areas and bikeability, the sparseness of Burning Daylight, the drums, the influence of writer/Klondike chronicler/renaissance man Jack London, the short story “To Build a Fire,” the Dawson City Music Festival songwriter’s residency, curling clinics and natural ice, rickety planes in the Yukon Territory, the gold rush and men, Women of the Klondike, the song “To Build a Fire,” we are full, our budgies Pickles and Buddy, things to know about budgies, Marianne Moore and her bathtub alligator, cats and computers, Gary the cat, I miss Buddy, sled dogs, celebration and adaptation, growing up in Kelowna, a drum kit and a punching bag, reading and remembering, the Humber College jazz program and the University of Guelph philosophy and english departments, that fucking Stephen Harper, meeting John K. Samson, couples who consult each other about their art, working in Nunavut and the Northwest Passage, how the Inuit people are oppressed, getting into the world of poetry, a new show with Shary Boyle, ARP Books, Jason Tait lives in Winnipeg again, the spoken word song “The Gold-Seekers,” and then it’s adios.

Related links: christinefellows.com arpbooks.org vishkhanna.com

Christine Fellows and Pickles

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News Podcast

Ep. #128: Nicholas Ruddock

Nicholas Ruddock is a Guelph-based doctor and a critically acclaimed poet and author whose 2010 novel, The Parabolist, was short-listed for the Toronto Book Award. His latest work is the compelling, funny How Loveta Got Her Baby, a linked story collection that was published by Breakwater Books this past March. Ruddock will be reading at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival on Sunday Sept. 14 and we met in an empty house the other day to talk about his long road to living in Guelph, secret doctors, not writing about medicine, my weak eye, linking on a shady dance floor, living in Newfoundland, purposefully heading east instead of west, the profundity of ‘the Rock,’ daring me to move to Newfoundland, Elisabeth de Mariaffi, perceptions of Newfoundland, going from a novel to a short story collection, Butterpot and Not Butterpot, courage and writing, his first novel The Parabolist, the story of the soccer players, black humour and death, whether or not doctors can have fun with their jobs, lighten up British Columbia, Dawson City in 1976, writing about the nobility of human nature, plotting and scheming characters, babies and Camaros, seeing your story altered in a short film adaptation, avoiding Bruce Springsteen, the next novel, the very, very short stories in How Loveta Got Her Baby, the next 25 short stories, writing tips, twitter, Nick’s wife, visual artist Cheryl Ruddock and his daughter Koko Bonaparte, inspiring a new story, and then our appointment is over.

Related links: nicholasruddock.com breakwaterbooks.com edenmillswritersfestival.ca vishkhanna.com

nick_ruddock_small

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