Eden Mills Writers’ Festival Sunday
This past Sunday, Canada’s best authors read from and signed copies of their works in the idyllic township of Eden Mills, a short drive outside of Guelph. Shuttle busses carried Guelphites to the festival from downtown and from campus. One of Guelph’s Fab 5 Festivals, the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival Sunday is a unique experience and one that students interested in literature should check out in coming years.
Throughout the day, The Ontarion spoke to many of the writers on hand about writing, life, advice for students, and the festival itself. Here’s a selection of what they had to say.
What makes a great sentence?
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“A noun and a verb, and hopefully really good, colourful nouns and verbs. Mark Twain said when you see an adjective, kill it.”
—Lorna Crozier, What The Soul Doesn’t Want
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“A great sentence has to reenact what it’s telling you about rather than simply reporting or describing it. It has to recreate it through the acoustics, the punctuation, the syntax, and even the orthography. It’s not about just reporting that you saw a car accident, it’s about making it live for the reader so that they feel like they’re right there watching it.”
—Steven Heighton, The Nightingale Won’t Let You Sleep
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“For me a sentence is a poem in itself. I always think of each sentence as being a haiku. So my sentences each have to exist independent of the entire book.”
—Heather O’Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals
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“A great sentence is made by its conjunction with other sentences around it. So lots of different sentences can be great sentences depending on the context. In other words, a great sentence only exists as part of the author’s overall style.”
—Stephen Henighan, The Path of the Jaguar
Does being a writer give you a particular perspective?
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“I think being Anishnaabe for me is a much stronger influence. I think that that’s how I not only see the world but that’s how I construct the world. My identity is much more grounded in that than it is as a writer. When I’m writing in my head it’s an Indigenous audience, a Nishnaabeg audience. That’s my love and why I write.”
—Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This Accident of Being Lost
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“It definitely makes me feel a different relationship with reality. I always feel that what happens in books and the people I meet in books are just as real as those that I meet on Earth. As we’re speaking, I don’t really think this is real or any less fiction than what I find in a book.”
—Heather O’Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals
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“It’s a peculiar and skewed perspective, because you’re not out there having to obey an employer or turn up nine to five or do any of those things. It’s like a mental aberration, which, strangely enough, turned into a job. It’s fantasy. It’s brooding.”
—Emma Donoghue, Room
What is your advice to first years?
“Don’t go drinking too much on the roof.”
—Kathleen Winter, Annabel
“Try not to get caught up in the system of never enjoying anything. I taught a little with third- and fourth-year students from Memorial University at Harlow Campus, and they’re not encouraged to feel. Art is all about feeling and emotion, and university education is all about being dry and removed and analytical. You don’t want to ruin everything, every novel, every play, every movie by holding yourself away from it.”
—Mary Walsh, This Hour Has 22 Minutes
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“Don’t get crazy about whoever you’re dating because love is really destructive at this age. Remember: it’s your time. Don’t give it away to someone else.”
—Heather O’Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals
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“Get involved in as many things as you possibly can. I did that when I started university and it totally changed the course of my life. What I did with student politics and student journalism got me where I am today. And the people that I met there are second to none. Just show up for the club or the team. Nobody cares. Just do it. And, I guarantee you, you will not be disappointed.”
—Tanya Talaga, Seven Fallen Feathers
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“Seek out opportunities to be triggered, upset, confused, shaken, and to have your world turned upside down. Because, really, if college doesn’t do that for you, why would you bother?”
—Emma Donoghue, Room
What does this festival mean to you?
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“It’s really nice to see this festival embracing Indigenous writers and that’s really meaningful to me. It was wonderful to have [Indigenous writers] Gregory Scofield and Jordan Abel here. I even ran into Tom King [author of Green Grass, Running Water, and The Inconvenient Indian].”
—Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This Accident of Being Lost
Photos by Megan Sullivan
“It’s such an eccentric little festival. I know of no other festival that has a town crier and a bagpipe and a parade down main street to welcome the writers into town. So it makes you feel very valued and very important. I think this is my third time and it’s always a beautiful day. Our lives as writers are solitary and lonely. It’s nice to come to a place where you feel loved.”
—Lorna Crozier, What The Soul Doesn’t Want
Photos by Megan Sullivan; Feature image courtesy of Eden Mills Writers’ Festival and edited by Frances Esenwa