Trillium Book Award Author Readings June 16

IFOA Ontario Interview Series, with Michael Crummey

 
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Michael Crummey

The 35th Annual IFOA Festival is now underway! In 2006, IFOA introduced its travelling programme, IFOA Ontario, which brings IFOA literary events to numerous cities throughout Ontario, presented by a consortium of organizations across the province known collectively as Lit on Tour.

Writer Michael Crummey's latest novel, Sweetland (Doubleday Canada), which has been nominated for the 2014 Governor General's Award for Fiction, tells the story of Moses Sweetland, an old man who stubbornly refuses to leave his remote island home in Newfoundland. Michael will be joining authors Nick Cutter, Catherine Graham and Helen Humphreys on November 6th as part of IFOA Parry Sound in partnership with Parry Sound Books.

Today, Michael speaks with Open Book about overcoming his fear of public readings, his nostalgia for a certain Ontario city and his love for hotel rooms.

Open Book:

Tell us about what you’ll be reading at this year’s festival.

Michael Crummey:

I'll be reading from Sweetland, a novel about one man's attempt to resist the resettlement of his hometown on a remote island off the south coast of Newfoundland.

OB:

Have you attended IFOA in the past? If so, what is your favourite memory? If not, what are you most looking forward to?

MC:

This will be my fourth or fifth time at IFOA. Most of my favourite memories involve the infamous hospitality suite. Although being piped in to a reading by a bag pipe player at an IFOA event in a town north of Toronto is right at the top.

OB:

Tell us about a favourite spot or area in Ontario.

MC:

I lived in Kingston for years and I'm still kinda partial to the place. Spent a lot of time downtown at spots like Chez Piggy, The Toucan. The Sleepless Goat Cafe. Wayfarers Books. Novel Idea. Feeling nostalgic just writing out those names.

OB:

How do you manage the shift between being a solitary writer and a public reader? Is there a learning curve?

MC:

I avoided doing readings for years for fear of standing in front of a crowd. The solitary nature of the writing was part of what appealed to me about the life. It took a while to get past the crippling anxiety that a looming reading induced. I used to script and rehearse everything I would say, just to make it easier getting up there. I'm more relaxed about it now, thank God. Most of the time I'm just winging it, which may or may not be a good thing.

OB:

What is your favourite part about going on tour with a book?

MC:

Hotel rooms. I have always loved a hotel room. Fresh towels. Someone making the bed. Mini-bars. Room service. It's like leading a little fantasy life for a few weeks every four or five years.

OB:

What are you reading right now?

MC:

I'm in the middle of Lila, the new novel by the great Marilyn Robinson. I loved Gilead, every word of it. And it's a risk to write a book that covers that same territory from another character's point of view. But so far, it's working for me.


Michael Crummey is the bestselling author of four books of poetry and a book of short stories, Flesh and Blood. His debut novel, River Thieves, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and his second, The Wreckage, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His most recent novel, Galore, won the Commonwealth Book Prize in 2010 and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Sweetland is a finalist for this year’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

For more information about Sweetland please visit the Doubleday Canada website.

Buy this book at your local independent bookstore or online at Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.

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