Written by PAUL STRICKLAND
Citizen staff
|
|
Thursday, 17 April 2008 |
Teigan O'Carrol, left, laughs as Kari-Lynn Winters reads to students Thursday morning at Beaverly Elementary. Winters was one of four B.C. Book Prize finalists touring local schools Thursday. (Citizen photo by Brent Braaten)
Related Items
No related items found
Theresa Kishkan read from her nature essay, Autumn Coho in Haskins Creek, from her new essay collection, Phantom Limb, which is short-listed for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.
Mary Novik read pages from her novel, Conceit, set in 17th-century England. It has been short-listed for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
One student asked, "How long does it take to write a novel?"
"Five or six years for a novel," Kishkan answered. "However, an essay may take only a week or two, or as much as six months." In addition to Phantom Limb, Kishkan has written one other collection of essays, three novels and three collections of poetry.
Kovik said she was working on her novel for seven years before it was published.
She said interest in writing a novel can get a person started. "After a while, it's 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent hard work, but I do recommend it."
"How did you come to be a writer?" another student asked.
Kishkan said she came from an unlikely background. Her father was in the navy and her mother was a stay-at-home mom. At the university level she planned to go into archaeology, but an adviser told her, "How can you? You're a writer." She changed course from that point.
"You can't make a living as a writer, unless you're Margaret Atwood," Novik said. "So, you need a day job."
Novik recalled that when she reached the age of 50 and hadn't published a book, she began to realize she had to be more focused on the goal of writing a novel if she wanted to accomplish that before ending up in the grave.
"Ideas kept coming, but the hard part was what to do with them," she said. "There has to be structure to a novel, but you have to think of readers, too."
Kishkan told students they should do a lot of research into who might publish their work. "And be prepared for a lot of rejection," she advised. "Many more books are written than published.
"Some publishers want a track record of publishing in literary journals first."
She said there are a couple of theories about how to go about creating a novel. "Some write an outline, and then fill in the spaces," she explained. "They use the outline as a map."
Others write as new ideas about plot development come to them.
"I agree it would be it would be deadly boring to know where it's all going to end up," Kishkan said.
Novik told students they could get started by participating in the three-day novel contest sponsored by Anvil Press (www.anvilpress.com) and the Postcard Story Competition, sponsored by the Writers' Union of Canada (www.writersunion.ca). The latter calls for a complete story in 250 words or less.
Joining them in visiting Prince George this week as part of the B.C. Book Prizes on Tour event were Nan Gregory, short-listed for the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize for her book, Pink, and Kari-Lynn Winters, who has been short-listed for the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize for her book, Jeffrey and Sloth. They held readings and answered questions from students at Beaverly elementary school, Immaculate Conception Catholic School and Westwood elementary school.
 |
|
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 08 October 2008 )
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
