Teresa Young Interview

Discussing Salt Spring National Art Prize submission, art, cross-country travel and more

Teresa Young was interviewed by Yanik Gallie on March 4, 2019. Young is an Indigenous artist of mixed Cree and Norwegian ancestry who was born on the west coast of Canada and is currently making art in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Young’s created two album covers for rock groups in Sweden and the U.S. and covers for books and magazines. In 2014, her art was used in a book called the Rigged Universe by Canadian poet Anthony Labriola published with Shanti Arts.

Young’s art has won numerous awards in competitions worldwide. Her work is part of collections throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Her artwork can be purchased directly from the artist’s website teresayoungartist.ca or at Art 1274 Hollis gallery in Halifax.

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YG: How did you get into art?

TY: I was pretty isolated growing up. When I was thirteen, my mother brought my brother and myself from Saskatchewan to the Lower Mainland in British Columbia. We had relatives there and stayed for a summer. I used to go down to Stanley Park where artists did portraits, and I befriended some of them, basically getting myself some private lessons (chuckles).

I was focused. Art was all that interested me. I’m hyperactive so it was my coping mechanism. I looked at people like they were part of an ongoing visual display of light colour and shading. As I’ve gotten older, I can turn it off. My viewpoint of the world is with an artist’s eye.

YG: What is the artist’s eye?

TY: It’s part creativity and part appreciation of the world. It makes the world a brighter place because it’s almost like a symphony of music in a visual form. The oddest thing can catch your eye and draw you in. A lot of my artwork has evolved from a more abstract style and that flowing-organic style started since I was 14. There’s a feeling of movement to life, and I’m trying to capture that emotion in my art.

Photo: teresayoungartist.ca/digital-paintings

YG: Can you describe an approach you take when drawing or painting figuratively?

TY: If I’m doing art figuratively, I take different approaches. Sometimes I’ve got a concept, and I want to bring it into the design and composition that flows the way I want it to move. I’m expressing feelings, emotions, perceptions, and inner-perceptions that I’m not even aware of yet. Inner-perceptions always come out in the art as I’m painting.

Now, I’m working on a triptych for the Salt Spring National Art Prize (SSNAP). When I taught Contemporary Indigenous Studies at Dalhousie University, it was quite interesting because it changed my direction.

YG: How so?

TY: I used to be more reliant on a stream of consciousness with my art. I didn’t want to restrict or direct it that much. My art changes constantly. The way I handle colours, movement and stroke in the composition of my works from 20 years ago has evolved.

My art is very different now. I’m more interested in self-direction to explore the idea of a message behind the art. I’m about halfway through completing my triptych  submission for SSNAP. There are three canvases at a 30-degree angle. They are going down to represent the feeling of going downwards. I’ve got a gavel in the upper left. It’s all deep, deep, sunset colours like oranges, magenta-type reds going into purples, tans and browns, and a powdered blue. Streams flow down from the gavel. The justice buildings in Ottawa are in the dark, and they’re flowing down into a cross-legged figure seated in the right bottom corner. I have a stream of blues with feathers around it, and it’s flowing down like a river. It starts with nothing, and then there are lights floating down representing spirit. There’s a pow-wow in the middle painting of the triptych. The artwork is about missing and murdered Indigenous women. What I’m trying to do is present the idea that for reconciliation, we’ll have to factor this reality to get anywhere.

YG: That’s a powerful message.

TY: I’m going to hit them with a sledge hammer, I figured (chuckles). I typically had such a beautiful style that was not shocking. I’m moving away from that because I needed a direction. Finding my heritage was important. I learned about it 20 years ago, but I didn’t focus on it in my art until now. Getting to the point where I want to focus on it has led me in this new direction.

YG: Does your art change depending on the geographic location in which it’s made?

TY: I’m sure it does because I used to have more height and West Coast sail-ish aspects in my underlying style. I’ve noticed that in the last nine years I’ve been in the east, my art is becoming an underlying woodland-coloured style, and that change is unconscious. It’s got to be something to do with the environment and even the light. I’m very aware of light shadow. I love the Nova Scotia light. It feels like it’s almost painted. It’s so different than everywhere else.

YG: You’re well-travelled across Canada.

TY: I’ve driven across Canada eight times, two of them on a motorcycle. It rained two-thirds of the time each way during one cross-country trip on the bike. I have a blog that I haven’t touched in years called Surrealistic Reflections, and I published an article about how the sound of motorcycles makes me nostalgic. I talked about that trip across Canada, going from New-Brunswick to Kamloops when I was in the military as a radio technician. I had lost my plastic windshield on my Kawasaki 440 on the highway when I hit a  bad-rough stretch in the  prairies. I ended up getting rid of the windshield. It’s quite challenging to ride a motorcycle without one, but I did. On the way back, and this is why the windshield is important, they were resurfacing the Trans-Canada with tar, and it sprayed back up on to me from the road. So, I had this layer of oil on me, and I hit a small bird with white and grey feathers. It sprayed out. I was tarred in feathers. I started laughing so hard I had to pull off the highway. People were stopping and taking photographs, and it was hilarious. I enjoy life, and I find it amusing.

YG: Which elements of art by Salvador Dali and Georgia O’Keefe speak to you the most?

TY: O’Keefe, I didn’t know about her until about five years ago. Someone pointed out that the way I use colours and the organic flow of my artwork reminded them of O’Keefe. When I look at her abstracts, it’s almost like they’re distant cousins with mine. They’re close to my style, and I really like her work. Another artist in Nova Scotia that I like now is Monika Wright. She does beautiful flowing abstracts.

I like surrealism, Dali is basically the great forefather and master of surrealism. My favourite painting of Dali’s is “Santiago El Grande,” and it’s at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton. I’ve seen it. It’s like nine feet tall, and it’s beautiful. I’m not even religious, but that artwork is gorgeous.

YG: Are you familiar with petroglyphs?

TY: I’ve seen them in person when I lived in Ontario for a while, and I find them interesting. I know that Alan Syliboy bases his style on petroglyphs. I saved him until the very end when I was teaching a course. Students had to do an art     analysis of many contemporary Indigenous artists, and I never covered Syliboy during the course on purpose because he was on the final (chuckles).

YG: What advice do you have for aspiring artists?

TY: Go into digital art. It’s a growing field, and there’s a lot of room for experimentation and growth. Get some fundamentals so that you’re not left without tools. I think if you stick to traditional these days, you’re severely limiting yourself for no reason. Digital artwork is exploding, and there are a lot of opportunities in that field. Mind you, I minored in Computer Engineering, so maybe I’m biased because I work in the IT industry. I feel that getting all the tools you need, trying everything you can, and adapting are healthy habits. When I was teaching myself as I was growing up, I bought every book I could afford. The only few things that I hadn’t tried was encaustic   because I developed asthma and can’t stand the fumes and painting with egg tempera. I tried everything else I could get my hands on, including silk screens.

Another advice that I would give is to step outside of your comfort zone regularly. I’ve had my phases when my art got dark and subtle because I was not stepping outside my comfort zone. Create your own feeling of stasis and confusion. Never stop and think, I don’t want to wreck this. Take ownership of the art and say, “it’s my art. I’ll do whatever I want.”

Learning Lodge: Honouring Indigenous Women

Dr. Jane L. McMillan’s Anthropology class and sponsors welcome Indigenous leaders

People gathered in Immaculata auditorium on March 6, 2019 to attend a learning lodge from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. featuring five panelists who honoured Indigenous women. Outfitted with red dresses and ties, the auditorium was dressed to represent the absent women and men who are missing and murdered.

The evening began with a land acknowledgement and honour dance performed by Shiloh Pictou featuring the Kiju Boys on drum. The drum group from Paqtn’kek includes David Morris, Francis Julian, Cory Julian, Thomas Julian, Dustin Pictou, and Ozzy Clair. Pictou wore a radiant red regalia symbolic of healing and carried an eagle’s feather to honour and keep the creator close according to Terena Francis, coordinator of Indigenous Student Affairs at StFX.

Panelists Shane Bernard, Karen Bernard, Jennifer Cox, Devann Sylvester, and Kasha Young then recognized women who empowered them. The resiliency of speakers was inspirational as they shared their realities of coping with trauma and inter-generational trauma.

Photo: Yanik Gallie

The photo above shows Sylvester holding a photograph of her grandmother who was murdered when her mother was a young child. Sylvester honoured both women in her life. Sylvester said, “As an Indigenous woman, mother, and student, it is an important duty for me to honour the Indigenous women in my life that supported me and became my role models. For whatever reason, society has devalued Indigenous women throughout history which has major consequences for us to thrive and be successful in today's world. I am aware that I am 3 times more likely to be a victim of violence or killed which makes me aware of my surroundings every day of my life. My grandmother Marie Ninnian Marshall was a victim of homicide shortly after my mothers birth, which robbed us of ever knowing her. My way of being resilient is to become successful in my education and future teaching career, to teach my 4 year old son to be a good man and respect all women in his life, to tell my grandmothers story, and to participate in events like these that focus on honouring Indigenous women. In Mi'kmaq history, our societies were matriarchal and based around respect for women because women are the creators of life. This needs to come back and be acknowledged, and the learning lodge did an amazing job acknowledging that respect. I am very proud to be a Mi'kmaq woman.”

Common threads of discussion among speakers were the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry and Moose Hide Campaign. In light of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry final report scheduled for publication this April, Cox questioned the briefness of the inquiry leading her to doubt that it accounts for all missing women and children.

Panelists mentioned a shared concern for their own and their children’s wellbeing during everyday-life situations in Nova Scotia. Pauses during the speeches were most powerful as they personified the silenced voices of local missing and murdered Indigenous women and men.

Dr. Jane L. McMillan was host of the event sponsored by the department of Anthropology, Anthropology 234, Kerry Prosper, Indigenous Student Society and Indigenous Student Affairs. 

The question and answer period with panelists included some prepared questions from the Anthropology 234 students and spontaneous questions from the audience. A Guatemalan advocate and ally in the audience raised concern for the issue of missing and murdered Guatemalan children at this time. The woman referred to a recent case from Guatemala where a state-run home for women minors recently went up in flames claiming 41 of 56 lives. 

A takeaway from the event is the pervasiveness of the issue regarding missing and murdered women nationally and internationally. Listening to the first-hand struggles of colleagues and community members who are directly impacted by this issue was poignantly discomforting.

The Moose Hide Campaign is a movement of people standing up to end violence against women from coast to coast. Moose Hide Campaign adverts including leather or non-leather pins are available on the table outside The Xaverian Weekly newsroom by the StFX Store in Bloomfield Centre Room 111D for those interested in                     supporting the campaign.

Gerard Francis Donoghue (Gerry Dee) Interview

StFX alumnus plans return to campus for 25th anniversary

Gerard Francis Donoghue (Gerry Dee) was interviewed by Yanik Gallie on February 7, 2019. Donoghue’s work in comedy includes being a sports reporter with The Score, an actor in Trailer Park Boys: The Movie and a co-creator of the tv-series Mr. D. The humorist from Scarborough, Ontario is going on a tour across Canada starting March 1 in celebration of his 20th stand-up anniversary. 

Donoghue is about to perform stand-up on the road again and his creative writing process still happens without the audience in mind. “If it sounds funny to me, that’s my starting point. Hopefully it will translate to the audience,” Donoghue affirmed.

The cross-country tour is scheduled a few months after Mr. D’s season finale on December 19, 2018. After filming eight seasons of Mr. D, Donoghue said “the success speaks for itself. We had a great team over eight seasons. One of the challenges was writing fresh and funny scripts. I had a great group of writers that were equally a part of the project. Without them, it doesn’t go eight seasons.” 

The episode workshop was one of the more fun parts of the tv-series. Donoghue recalled, “we would sit in a room about six or seven of us and throw out ideas. We would think about what characters were doing in their own stories. Everyone would discuss around the table, it was a very collaborative effort. Someone would jump on one of the ideas and slowly start to build a story from there.” 

Donoghue cherishes his relationship with co-creator Michael Volpe, “he was someone who believed in me right out of the gate. We’re lifelong friends now. He was a great collaborator and equal partner on the show. We still keep in touch, so we might do something down the road.” 

Getting to know the Volpe family was “one of the best parts of that show” for Donoghue. He attributes networking with Volpe and comedians Mark Forward, Jonathan Torrens and Emma Hunter as a reason for the longevity of Mr. D’s comedic success.

A couple of winters ago, I saw Donoghue perform stand-up in Saint John, New-Brunswick. Donoghue made a hilarious entrance on-stage wearing a Sea Dogs jersey and was quick on his feet the rest of the show. By “trusting my instincts as a writer and actor,” Donoghue swiftly moved his audience to humility and laughter. 

Donoghue is a graduate of Physical Education with honours at StFX. He completed the degree as a concurrent program with Education in 1994. “It was a great time for me, I miss it dearly. My 25th anniversary is coming up this year so I’m going to get out there soon,” he hinted. 

Donoghue will perform stand-up at Halifax, Nova Scotia in the superb Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on April 23. It is his only scheduled tour appearance in the province so far. Additional Canadian cities for the tour have yet to be announced. Follow Donoghue on social media for more information on his whereabouts and projects.

Tickets to the Halifax show are now available for purchase at gerrydee.ca. A ticket for the performance on April 23 costs from $49.50 to $79.50 depending on the proximity of seat to stage. Celebrate the last day of exams with friends at this  timely stand-up performance.

Stella Bowles Interview

Recipient of Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada visits campus

Stella Bowles was interviewed by Yanik Gallie in The Xaverian Weekly newsroom on February 5, 2019. Bowles was on campus hosting an address to Bachelor of Education students with a focus in Business. Bowles was invited to speak of her entrepreneurial skills and how to support non-traditional student learning. My River: Cleaning up the LaHave River is a book by Bowles written with Anne Laurel Carter available for purchase at Chapters, Amazon, and local bookshops across Canada.

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YG: How did you meet Carter?

SB: She presented herself as an author wanting to write a book about my work. She came over for a cup of tea, we had tea and talked. We decided it would be a good idea to write the first couple chapters and see if a publisher picks up the book. Formac Publishing Company Limited picked up the book, so she wrote the rest. 

YG: Describe a typical workshop for the book with Carter. 

SB: Anne wrote the book from my perspective. There was a lot of sending notes back and forth to change things. Because she lives in Toronto, we had to FaceTime to talk. Sometimes it would be talking about my day because she needed to become me to write the book. She was in Hawaii once when we were FaceTiming. She was asking about how I would structure my sentences. When I proofread the drafts, I recognized things I said. There’s a lot of proofreading involved. Even if you read a page, you have to go back and read it again. Sending emails is a big part of the work too. She captured my voice. 

YG: What’s your advice to  students? 

SB: You can make a difference no matter your age. Your age shouldn’t define what you can and cannot do. If you talk to your parents or a mentor, you can get somebody to help you. You can accomplish just about anything. 

YG: What’s your advice to teachers?

SB: I think classrooms need more hands-on learning. I don’t like traditional school. It’s boring. If you do an activity or workshop, students retain more information than they would if they were reading from a textbook. Science is fun; I learned that with my project. 

YG: How can teachers better support students?

SB: Care. Any kind of acknowledgement is nice. They don’t have to throw a party but saying something positive with constructive advice is important to students. Don’t shut down questions if students are interested in an unfamiliar topic either. Guide students and help them find a resource, teacher or mentor to engage with their interest.

YG: Can you share the story about your sign?

SB: I’m a little stubborn (chuckles). My sign was up to show that the river was contaminated with fecal bacteria and the municipality called me asking to take the sign down. I said, “No.” They called again and asked, “When are you going to take it down?” I said, “As soon as the program starts and the first hole is done for a septic system, I’ll take it down.” They called me again later and invited me to the digging ceremony for the septic system where we took some pictures then I took my sign down. 

YG: You recently announced a partnership with Bluenose Coastal Action Foundation. How did it happen?

SB: It happened through the prize money I was winning from different organizations. We decided to have a partnership and create kits that provide students with equipment for them to test their own  waterways.

This partnership is showing that kids can make a difference and science can be fun. The kits are about $600 each, and that provides equipment to test for about a year. I have a few groups in Nova Scotia and three groups in Sweden who are using the kits. 

YG: What is your message to communities in Canada that have straight pipes dumping into waterways?

SB: Straight pipes are 100% illegal in Canada. They are not grandfathered in by law and that should be enforced. I don’t see how it’s right to be putting sewage and toilet paper down the toilet directly into our waterways. When I was getting a sample, we found needles along the shore. Anything being flushed ends up in our waterways. If someone steps on a needle, it’s dangerous.

YG: Mayor Rachel Bailey of Lunenburg questioned the validity of your Lunenburg water results.

SB: I was curious. I wanted to know what Lunenburg’s contamination level was and it was bad. I posted the results and the mayor was not happy. She questioned the validity of my results. I went to Acadia university and we did tests with variables to validate my experiment. Half of my samples are tested by me and half are tested by an accredited laboratory. The results turned out to be accurate. 

YG: How do you modify your presentation for a specific audience?

SB: I present to people in primary and secondary classes, university, and nursing homes. It’s interesting because I’m always presenting in a different way and adapting my speech. If I talk to little kids, I’ll say, “There’s poop in the river.” They’ll react by trying to fix the problem. When people get older, it’s all about tax money going towards fixing the problem and funding. It’s fascinating how people’s perspectives change as they get older. 

YG: How did you get in touch with researchers in Sweden?

SB: Jennie Larsson came to work with Coastal Action for a month over the summer. We got in contact with her and we went to one of her conferences in Halifax. She said it would be great to have a partnership with us. 

I went to Sweden this  December right after the Walk of Fame. It was a cool experience being in the classrooms in Sweden. All the kids get fed healthy meals at the schools. They were eating cream fish and food that nobody would ever go near at my school. 

YG: Considering how Sweden is running their education system, how can we improve our system?

SB: Technology in the classroom is not going away. It   bothers me when teachers lock      everything down on a Chromebook. Have a little more trust in students. We need to have a conversation in the classroom about how to properly respect the internet and use the technology. 

YG: What’s your takeaway from being the first recipient of Canada’s Walk of Fame          Community Hero Award?

SB: I think it’s a good opportunity to spread my message    further. It really gets the message out that our waters aren’t clean, and we need to step up our game on that situation. It’s great to be winning, but I’m not doing it for the awards. 

YG: During your acceptance speech you mention Dr. David Maxwell is a mentor. How is he an exemplary teacher?

SB: He provided me with testing equipment. I was able to publish my results. Being an 11-year-old kid testing water and saying it’s dirty, a lot of people would question what I was talking about. Dr. Maxwell helped to validate my work. 

He likes to ask me a lot of questions and makes me think critically. He still goes back to things I didn’t know when I was 11 and asks me to explain it to him now. 

YG: What was a most memorable moment from Canada’s Walk of Fame?

SB: They cut out the best part of Canada’s Walk of Fame from airtime. I didn’t know who Kurt Browning was and I was told to walk fast to my seat because I had gone to the bathroom during a commercial break when Kurt said, “Are you Stella Bowles?” I said, “Yep.” I kept walking to my seat. He got on stage and made a joke that I am the most intimidating person he ever met and that I could get any politician’s money (chuckles). 

Also, because my award was associated with the Toronto Maple Leafs, they gave me a jersey signed by the whole team with my name embroidered on the back. In a few weeks, they’re flying the family to see a Toronto Maple Leafs game which I’m excited to attend. 

Dr. Leslie Jane McMillan Interview

Book Launch: Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice

Dr. Leslie Jane McMillan was interviewed by Yanik Gallie in her office on January 28, 2019. McMillan’s book launch on February 1 at the Antigonish public library brought together a roomful of people beyond seating capacity. The book sold out before guest speakers Laurel J. Halfpenny-MacQuarrie and Kerry Prosper introduced McMillan. Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice is available for purchase at Chapters, Amazon, and local bookshops across Canada.

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YG: Looking back at the wrongful conviction and fishing cases, how does it feel to continue fighting for social justice?

JM: September 17, 1999 is the 20th anniversary of the Marshall decision. This year also marks the completion of the commission on Donald Marshall Junior prosecution for the time he spent in jail for a murder he did not commit. It’s the 30th anniversary of that report which technically was released on January 26, 1990 but the commission concluded its work in 1989. Having been involved in that work for a long time, my passion is constantly fueled and restocked by the outrages that continue to happen in terms of justice and equality with examples of systemic racism and discrimination. There’s no shortage, unfortunately, of situations that point to the need for systemic change. Hopefully the work we do now in collaboration with community is picking up some momentum. It’s starting to drive not just surface changes, but substantive changes in the way relationships recognize and honour Indigenous treaty rights, human rights and Mi’kmaw vision for governance over all things that affect their lives. It’s taken a long time to address systemic racism and discrimination because they require systemic change. There are increasingly more and more people getting involved in positions of power who are recognizing what happens when they exclude Mi’kmaq people from decision making that impacts their lives. 

YG: What are your favorite memories with Donald Marshall Junior?

JM: We had a lot of very happy times when we lived up in Cape Breton in Aberdeen at a place we called Junior’s farm. I think some of the happiest moments were when his brothers, sisters, mother, the extended family, the kids and their kids would all come over to the farmhouse. We’d have a big bonfire with lots of food. The day he woke up from his transplant was also one of the happiest days. When he recognized he had survived that ordeal, it was a special moment. Most of the time, happy moments were sitting around up in Aberdeen playing cribbage at the kitchen table with the windows wide open, smelling the cedar, and being out in the country.

YG: How is the title and cover artwork significant to you?

JM: It took a long time to get to that title. It certainly wasn’t the original title. It’s commonplace that the press has an idea, the author has an idea, and sometimes it takes a while to negotiate something that everybody’s comfortable publishing. The book was originally called Unsettling Justice and then colon with another caption. 

Truth and Conviction are powerful terms. As an anthropologist, I think there are multiple truths. I also think there are many forms of conviction. Whether it’s conviction to make change or conviction in the sense of the justice system, we constantly construct these ideas of truth and conviction. It’s a metaphor for many paths that are in the book. 

It’s the legacy of Donald Marshall Junior that I’m pointing to in terms of narrating these very important points like what are the truths for Mi’kmaq people? What is the history and the consequences of colonization of their legal principles? What are their convictions about the restoration and revitalization of those legal principles today? That’s very much part of Donald Marshall Junior’s legacy outlined in the quest for justice.

The artwork is one of my favorite pictures. I thought we would go with more abstract art or an artist’s rendition, but they wanted to use this photo. It’s a beautiful photo of him fly fishing and he looks extremely peaceful. Fly fishing was one of his favorite things to do. 

YG: Having been a defendant for Marshall’s decision on Indigenous fishing rights, can you describe the atmosphere during the proceeding?

JM: There was a lot of tension. The court was first heard at the provincial level here in Antigonish because the charges were near Paq’tnkek at Pomquet Harbour. There was a lot of media attention to the case because it was Donald Marshall Junior. It’s interesting whenever you’re dealing with somebody who’s in the public gaze, you deal with a lot of unwanted attention. You’ve got strangers approaching you about strange things too. There’s a certain vulnerability of being in the public gaze that made me very uneasy and made Donald even more uneasy. 

He wanted to avoid that after the wrongful conviction when it was just non-stop. All he wanted to do was exercise his treaty rights in a calm and peaceful way, a right that he knew he had. Generationally, these rights were known by the Mi’kmaq to be active and alive. The gaze of the public, again, caused a lot of stress and tension. His health declined more rapidly than I think it would have otherwise hadn’t he experienced that.Then, we lost at the court here. The late judge John D. Embree did everything he could to give the fairest judgement and open it up for further investigation which we are always grateful that we were given leave to appeal. It was hard work. 

YG: Kerry Prosper was talking with me earlier today about the preparation for court and the collaborative effort of the team.

JM: There was a huge team of researchers. A lot of new Mi’kmaq lawyers who had just graduated from the Indigenous Blacks and Mi’kmaq law program that had started at Dalhousie University as a result of the commission of inquiry into the wrongful conviction helped with the case. It was a beautiful synergy that was happening. Many of these Mi’kmaq lawyers at that time are now in leadership positions like chief P.J. Prosper, Doug Brown who is president of Union of Nova Scotia Indians, and Jimbo Michael. A lot of strong Mi’kmaq women lawyers were also part of the research team. 

There was an awful lot of preparation. I have seven or eight volumes of historical archival work. William Wicken who was one of the historical experts for the Mi’kmaq worked tirelessly. This was a very important treaty test case because it was testing 1760-1761 treaties which were different than the 1752 treaty. This had the addition of commerciality and the livelihood trade part that was critical to the nation. Bruce Wildsmith and Eric Zscheile led the legal team with exemplary care.

YG: You were with Donald Marshall Junior in Pomquet Harbour fishing. Can you describe the environment the day DFO met you on the water?

JM: A beautiful sunny day. It was one of those days when you’re happy to be on the water. A slight breeze, I remember the water sparkling. Donald’s back was really sore, so I was driving the boat most of the day and I was hauling the nets. In Pomquet, the eels are big. The eels were slapping around the boat. 

We were in a good mood, then we see a boat coming. Normally it’s quiet down there. Sometimes there would be a fisherman or two around, but it was quiet that day. The DFO came over in their boat and asked to see what was in our boat. I thought they were looking for by-catch like if you’re fishing salmon when it’s out of season. They asked to see our license and JR said, “I don’t need a license.” The officer said, “Everybody needs a license.” JR said, “I’ve got a treaty right.” I didn’t have a license either. None of the people we fished eel with had them or talked about them. Mi’kmaq didn’t need licenses is how we understood the land to be. 

The officers were very polite. They wanted our names and address. We were reluctant to engage with the officers. Donald’s not that comfortable around people in uniform, and rightly so. They asked to take one of our nets for evidence. We asked them to take an empty net, which they did. We wanted it back, but we didn’t ever get it back. Then, they drove away and hit a sand bar. We laughed because we thought, they don’t even know the water. What are they doing down here?  We had no idea what was going on. When we called asking to get the net back, things started to progress from there. Things got quite political quickly. It was a nice sunny day and we were quite bewildered. 

YG: What are your thoughts on the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action?

JM: There are 94 Calls to Action. Two of the most critical ones from my perspective are numbers 42 and 50 which talk about building Indigenous justice systems and institutes to learn about Indigenous legal principles and put them into practice. We are a long way from those Calls to Action. I think they offer such an exciting opportunity to engage, develop, and apply Indigenous legal principles. 

Other Calls to Action talk about the reduction of incarceration of Indigenous people. There are lots of opportunities to build programs and facilities for wellness and healing that are really grounded in Indigenous cultures and teachings. If the government follows through on their commitment to implement all Calls to Action, there can be some beautiful programs and opportunities to help break cycles of intergenerational trauma, recidivism, and young people going to jail because there aren’t opportunities for education, employment or getting grounded in cultural teachings. 

I’m optimistic. There’s lots of mobilization around Indigenous intelligence. There’s lots of scholars, legal scholars, but there must be more collaboration with the legal justice system and the courts, with society in general. What does a pluralistic justice system look like? Community building and fostering community to legitimize their own justice systems and programming in ways that are meaningful. It takes a long time to unpack the horrors of colonization and rejuvenate pride and belief in the principles of ways of being. 

YG: Land-based education is important in schools.

JM: We just came from a three-day conference on land-based education as the conduit to healing dispute and dispute management as well. People get disconnected when they make a dispute within a community. They break a relationship not only with the individual they’ve harmed but with the families and networks of families that create a community. How do you fix that? Sending them to jail isn’t the answer. The answer is reintegration back into the fold of what it means to be a whole new person. By creating opportunities, we help an individual who’s in crisis to address their prideness demon, addiction, or cycles of abuse that they need help to facilitate. Giving the space, having the communities create spaces, and having them supported consistently not with programs or pilot projects but with real systemic resources to make change. It’s generative, but we are a long way from seeing substantial results. We’ve been talking for a long time. More people talk now but I want to see more action. 

YG: What is your philosophy as an anthropologist?

JM: Anthropology as a discipline is well-positioned in terms of community engagement. In terms of working with Indigenous communities and as a professor of Anthropology, I try to leverage my position of privilege and power to advocate for changes the community tells me they want. 

I’m very fortunate. I was up in community today and I was up in community for the last three days of last week with the Marshall family and a gathering of elders. They are so generous in the knowledge they share. The experiences that I have are rich. 

A lot of times, it’s really painful and difficult work. You’re working with people’s pain and suffering trying to find solutions so that it doesn’t continue, so that we don’t perpetuate colonial relationships, and so that we don’t allow laws or policies that infringe on people’s wellbeing. 

We fight for equity and my job is a great one in that I get to meet people from around the world who are so wise and resilient. It keeps reaffirming that cultural attributes are phenomenal, and they tell us a lot about humanity. 

Charging Stations on Campus for Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles’ charging stations $1 per hour now functioning

Two electric vehicle charging stations in the Bloomfield Centre rear parking lot and one in the J. Bruce Brown Hall parking lot installed on November 20, 2018 are now functioning. 

Faculty Management’s Energy & Utilities Supervisor Kevin Latimer, leader of these installments, said the stations are part of the Mulroney Hall project. The charging stations earned Mulroney Hall points to qualify as a Gold building on the LEAD (Leadership Energy and Environmental Design) ranking. 

At the cost of $1 per hour, an electric vehicle hooked at a charging station on campus will get its battery charging and the payment is easily processed through the FLO app. 

When asked about profitability, Latimer commented “It isn’t profitable at a buck an hour. A buck an hour will recover our energy cost. Three units cost close to $25 000.”

“I was talking to Kevin Latimer about stations since I got the car. Some charging stations are free,” Frank Comeau said referring to the stations at Halifax Library, Dalhousie University and Saint Mary’s University. “I was arguing with Latimer to make them free.”

Comeau added, “There’s no point in charging my car here because it costs me two to three times more than it costs at home. For that reason, I don’t use them that much.”

Comeau was the first user of the charging station at J. Bruce Brown Hall. Comeau and I did the math to compare the charging and fueling costs between our vehicles. Comeau’s Volt travels 60 kilometers for $1.5 to $2.5 while my Grand Prix travels the same distance for $8 to $8.25. 

As part of the Maritime Link Project, Nova Scotia is shifting from 28% renewable energy to 40% renewable energy. Latimer notes, “Nova Scotia Power has promised to have 40% renewables by 2020. When that happens, electricity will be more environmentally friendly than gas. Right now, electricity in Nova Scotia is close to breaking even with gas in terms of carbon footprint.” 

Latimer started fidgeting with his safety glasses when he mentioned, “We could easily go to 50% renewable energy, but Nova Scotia is going to sell 10% for profit to the States where energy will go at a much higher rate.” 

Comeau, electrical engineer and professor at StFX, questioned the research that concludes electric vehicles have a similar carbon footprint as gas vehicles, “Studies have shown that electric vehicles in Nova Scotia emit the same carbon footprint as gas cars and other studies have shown that it’s about half of the carbon footprint. I can’t seem to get to the bottom of this. If we had 100% renewables, it’d be better.” 

Comeau has been fascinated with renewable energy since he was a youngster, “I’ve been interested in electric cars since the oil crisis in the 1970s. There were big, long, lineups at gas stations and people started thinking about renewables then is what I remember.”

 “I have plans to put solar power on my house to charge my car,” Comeau asserted. Solutions to the carbon footprint issue seem to be generating electricity with renewable energy sources like solar panels, windmills, or hydropower instead of mining lithium. 

Comeau is one of two professors at StFX who have electric vehicles. Few students, if any, have electric vehicles. Latimer hopes that tourists visiting campus with electric vehicles this summer will increase the use of charging stations. 

Electric vehicles will have to be actively charging at the station on campus or they will get a ticket, and they can stay charging in the station for up to four hours per parking session. Electric vehicle charging symbols will be painted in the designated parking spots this spring. 

Moose Hide Campaign

End violence against women and children

The Moose Hide Campaign (MHC) is a movement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous men and boys who are taking a stand to end violence against women and children. The campaign is not limited to men and boys, women and girls are encouraged to wear the moose hide and take roles in the campaign like ceremonial witnesses for events, keynote speakers, and cultural leaders and advisors. 

MHC was started by Paul Lacerte and his daughter Raven in 2011. Lacerte is from Cariboo Clan and the Carrier Nation. 

There are many avenues to participate in the campaign. Wearing a square pin made of leather or non-leather is an option. The Xaverian Weekly will provide pins (leather or non-leather), information about the campaign, and other resources about local services in the newsroom (Room 111D, SUB) each Friday of February from 11am-2pm. 

All moose hide squares come from traditional hunters who hunt moose for food and ceremonial purposes, or from animals who have died in road accidents. No animals are hunted specifically to supply hides for the Moose Hide Campaign. 

The patches are produced with care by Indigenous women who are deeply committed to the protection of women and children and who value the living origins of the patches. Making the patches provides a valuable source of income for the women involved.

Another avenue for participation is the day of fasting and gathering on February 13, 2019. MHC provides a fasting guide for people who are new to the traditional practice. The guide is available in The Xaverian Weekly newsroom where the day’s events on February 13 will be livestreamed. If unable to participate in person, MHC has an online “Pledge Now” button that records a short 45 second video with phone, laptop or tablet. Photos and messages are also accepted as alternatives to video. 

Karen Nembhard Interview

Co-coordinator of B.L.A.C.C. invites students to get involved with their society

Karen Nembhard was interviewed by Yanik Gallie on January 25, 2019. 

Nembhard is a fourth-year international student who is pursuing a B.A. in Psychology (Concentration in Forensic Psychology) and a minor in Development Studies. Nembhard  is one of the coordinators for the B.L.A.C.C. Students Society. Nembhard is passionate about social justice issues. She believes it is important that we all consider the role we play in making our university a more equitable social environment to live, learn and work.

***

YG: Tell me about yourself and your philosophy as a leader. 

KN: I am in my fourth-year major in Forensic Psychology concentration as well as a minor in Development Studies. I do as many courses on Women and Gender as possible because my area of interest is social justice. I’m super passionate about it. I love seeing people do the work to get to a more equitable society. It’s very important and valuable work. Hopefully we get to a day where we don’t have to do that anymore, but for right now it’s good to be aware of it. That ties into my philosophy. As a leader, it’s about improving the conditions and understanding that words like diversity, inclusion, and equality have become buzzwords. We have to be realistic and set goals that are attainable. I believe in equity. Saying we’re equal and the same denies me of my individuality and experience as well as another person who might have a physical disability or be from the LGBTQ+ communities. I think we need to allow people to be individuals by seeing them as full people and helping them in that way. 

YG: What have been successes and challenges of your society?

KN: The successes are that we were able to get this thing off the ground and have people come out and like it, support it, and have a good time as well as having tough conversations sometimes. Tough conversations are required for growth. The process of growing isn’t easy, there can growing pains; In anything, they’re inevitable. I would say challenges would be that we tried to have a B.L.A.C.C. society of some sort a few years ago and it didn’t really work out because not everyone felt like they were being included and represented in the way they wanted to be. Meaning, there is a lot of diversity within the African descent society. I’m of African descent, but I’m from the Caribbean. My experience will not be the same as someone who’s of African descent from Canada. If you’re African as opposed to African descent, there are also differences. I would say it has been a little bit challenging to really deal with and showcase that. A lot of the time when you look at someone of color, you just kind of tag past it. When you describe someone of color, it tends to be “Oh, I know that person’s Black.” If I am a person of dark skin, but I am from an African country I might not view the world as a Canadian would. From the outside, we’re seen as one. If I am of African descent and do something bad like having a bad conversation with a police officer and everyone gets painted in the same light, that’s not fair to our community. We don’t get to have the same individuality as everyone else. There is a lot more diversity within cultures, but we tend to focus on “Well, we have some Black people in this picture,” “Asians in this picture,” and “LGBTQ+ people in this picture” but there are so many layers beyond that which we don’t look at. It has a been a challenge in terms of getting people to understand and acknowledge that. At the same time, there is strength in numbers. It’s better to be seen as a community for certain efforts. If you’re rallying for something like a representative of the Students’ Union, we want to do that and hold onto our individual identities. 

YG: Describe your vision for the society’s future.

KN: My vision is increasing in its reach. By reach, I mean not just StFX but reaching out to students at Dalhousie University and Saint Mary’s University because there is more strength in greater numbers. I want for it to always remain true in that the first and foremost important thing is to be a safe space for students of color and to be representative of the diversity within the community. I definitely want it to be an advocacy platform too. 

The name of the society is pronounced “Black” but it’s spelt B.L.A.C.C. and “B” is biracial, “L” is the Latinx community, “A” is African, “C” is Canadian, and the other “C” is Caribbean because they are the different backgrounds and cultures that we come from. I’m sure we can add way more letters because it can be more diverse. I think it should stay true to being diverse and hopefully it will be a place where people go to for help and resources. I hope it can improve the race relations at StFX and improve people’s understanding of diversity and those buzzwords by creating a real meaning for them. It’s one thing to say, “We’re diverse and working on being diverse,” but people just don’t get up and go. Antigonish is a predominately white community. Saying to somebody from Antigonish, “Hey, you should be more diverse.” How? You just stop at saying it should. People could use some help in understanding what that means. 

Photo: Tega Sefia

YG: How is Agnes Calliste’s vision and pathway here at StFX meaningful to your society?

KN: It’s badass. She was the first person to create the African Student Descent office that Kelsey Jones occupies. I think that was the first step in creating a safe space for students of color who attend StFX because they have someone that I can go to for advice or help in a particular area. Even our society now relies on that office a lot. For students who might not be aware of what the office does, we try to connect students. If you’re a student of African descent and you need help or you’re facing a particular issue on campus, B.L.A.C.C. might not have all the answers because we’re students but you can go to the office to get more help. That office is instrumental and very important. I think we need to pay attention to the work that’s being done there. Calliste did that years ago, and here we are now being grateful for it. It’s important to value that moment and the things that have come since. I think she’s an inspirational badass. 

YG: Do you think the Pan-African flag should be permanently installed on campus?

KN: Absolutely. I’m not Black for a month. I’m Black 365 days a year. If it’s a leap year, add an extra day (chuckles). I think it should be there at all times as a symbol that this university is committed to working towards better relations on that front. I’m not saying they aren’t, they definitely have made improvements, and I support and salute changes that are made outside of the Black community like the Indigenous and Pride communities. They’re not mutually exclusive, because the system of oppression doesn’t decide, “I’m only going to work against this group.” It’s shared. I think raising the flag is a perfect next step for the university. The flag is a symbol that the university is committed. It’s not just let’s do this for a month. We’re Black students for the entire time we’re here and the rest of our lives. It would serve as a reminder. Let’s say we put up a flag. We can’t say that everything’s great now; The flag should be a reminder of more work to do. 

YG: What is your message to students about your society?

KN: I know that some students think I’m not necessarily Black, I would want to know more, and I don’t know if I can participate. You absolutely can. We’ll add another “A” for allyship to the name. I think it’s important to have more voices looking at these issues and learning about culture. The general StFX community consumes Black music, culture, and art. How cool would it be to learn more about it appropriately? It’s one of the best spaces on campus to come, ask questions, and learn. We’re open to all students who want to join our society. 

Calling All Beer Connoisseurs

10.3% brew is local company’s first bottled beer

Half Cocked Brewing Company released its first bottled beer Tapped and Feathered on December 22, 2018 and it’s flavourful. With an alcohol by volume of 10.3%, the new maple batch is a warm buzz in a bottle with a hint of vanilla and chocolate flavour.

The beer is a maple sap imperial stout with quality ingredients sourced from North Grant in Antigonish County. After aging in a Glenora whiskey barrel for 6 months, the beer is bottled. Sap from Haveracre maple farm in Antigonish is slightly noticeable. The beer’s vanilla flavor comes from the oak wood of the barrel used for aging. 

On a shelf in the staff room sits a small jar of the whiskey that was absorbed in the wood of the barrel when the beer was aged. It smells powerful and smooth. Co-owner Greg Oicle commented on the beer’s high alcohol by volume, “The high gravity makes it safer to age. For barrel-aging beer, you want the gravity higher because you have less likelihood of bacteria and yeast or other contaminants over time. It went into the barrel at 8.5% and it came back from Glenora at 10.3%.”

The warm feeling one gets from drinking whiskey is a unique feature of Tapped and Feathered. 

A bottle of 650ml sells for $17. Of the 286 bottles made, half of them are already sold.

Photo: Facebook @Half Cocked Brewing Company

In addition to sourcing local ingredients, Half Cocked Brewing Company supports local business. Luc Boudreau is the artist from the Maritimes, creator of Maritime Grime, responsible for the top-notch label design on the Tapped and Feathered bottle. 

Boudreau is also the designer of the company’s logo symbolic of the family’s chicken farm that was built by Oicle’s grandfather and partners in the 1960s.

Oicle’s parents bought the farm in the 1980s. As the oldest boy growing up on a farm raising 24 000 chickens, Oicle is familiar with a strong work ethic. In the summer of 1999 before he started his Geology degree at StFX, Oicle worked on building an additional barn where Half Cocked Brewing Company is now located.

The bottling gear for Tapped and Feathered is provided by Big Spruce Brewing, a company from Nyanza, Nova Scotia. Big Spruce Brewing has been supporting Oicle since the early days when they delivered growlers to The Townhouse Brewpub & Eatery for sale. The business model quickly evolved and Oicle now does growler fillings and pints weekly on Thursday evenings at their location.

Oicle is the head brewer and majority shareholder of Half Cocked Brewing Company. His passion for home brewing started in 2014 when Oicle and his brother experimented with recipes. 

The inspiration came from walking into the NSLC and   noticing only a handful of beers were made in Nova Scotia. He remembered, “A year before we opened, we were refining our recipes by brewing for friends and family.”

Founded in August of 2017, Oicle is already looking at brewing equipment to expand the business, “In the course of a month I make 800 to 1000 litres of beer. With a new system, I can be making that much in a day.”

StFX students confirm that the Half Cocked Brewing Company honors its mission to brew delectable, yet down to earth beer. After tasting Tapped and Feathered, Joseph Goodwin wrote, “The variety of flavours create an experience unlike any other beer and despite its robustness and high alcohol content, it is unbelievably smooth.” 

Julia McKaig described Tapped and Feathered, “The first dark beer to ever perk my ears up. Perfect for an uplifting night. Heed warning, it may keep things lively until morning.”

Stop by the brewery on Thursdays from four to seven for excellent service and       quality products at 1290 off the old Highway 245 in Antigonish. 

Cyber-attack Harnesses StFX Network Power

Bitcoin business temporarily shuts down StFX services

StFX services such as Wi-Fi, Moodle, MesAmis, printing and student email accounts were down for the count starting the morning of November 1. These services and others gradually returned on Sunday following a 4-day hiatus. 

The university’s Facebook @stfxuniversity posted on November 2 that the “IT Services Team worked through the night making progress testing and analyzing the 150 servers within our network.” Each server is being evaluated rebooted after a thorough assessment that accounts for the time-consuming process. 

Kendra MacDonald, a Service & Support Administrator of IT Services notes the cause of this issue to be an organization harnessing power from the school’s network to mine bitcoin. 

MacDonald assured The Xaverian Weekly that the person, or people, doing ‘cryptocoin mining.’  behind this operation on StFX’s high-powered network did not access personal information from students’ accounts. 

StFX News details the act of ‘mining’ as “The malicious software attempted to utilize StFX’s collective computing power in order to create or discover bitcoin for monetary gain.”

Xaverian News Editor Evan Davison-Kotler worked in the corporate finance industry this past summer as a blockchain consultant. He expands on StFX’s announcement, “There’s essentially a set number of bitcoins that have can ever come into circulation. Mining is simply the process of releasing a new bitcoin into circulation. It’s a competition between lots of people on the network to solve a really hard cryptographic problem using computational power. The function of mining is essentially two-fold – it creates a resource-based method of obtaining Bitcoin, putting a bottleneck on the supply and a cost (power) associated with the procurement of the currency. The second element is security – the more individuals attempting to release a coin into circulation, the more secure the bitcoin network becomes; this is through really impressive and complex cryptography. The more bitcoins in circulation, the higher the mining difficulty for the next bitcoin, meaning the more power necessary to mine. In theory, increased power demands match increased price of bitcoin, meaning there is always a monetary incentive to expend the power necessary to release a new coin into circulation. We can obviously see the issue with this, where bad actors could attempt to infiltrate and repurpose existing servers and processors that they do not own, re-routing them to expend processing power on bitcoin mining.”  

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto. The idea for the cryptocurrency was first posted by Nakamoto in “Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper” dated November 1, 2008. 

The paper by Nakamoto, originally published in full on bitcoin.org, is the first trace of Nakamoto’s mysterious identity. To this day, documentaries and other sources speculate on whether Nakamoto is an individual or a group of people.  

An article titled “What is Bitcoin?” posted on the University of Toronto website March 17, 2014 defines in some detail what is Bitcoin and how it works. Jenny Hall interviews Yuri Takhteyev who was a status-only professor in the Faculty of Information about cryptocurrency. Takhteyev concludes that, “cryptocurrencies are probably here to stay.” 

Takhteyev correctly predicted the evolution of “cryptocurrencies” from the underground black-market into mainstream. The University of Toronto added three new courses this year. Portfolio Management Praxis Under Real Market Constraints, Blockchain Technologies and Cryptocurrencies, and Inventrepreneurship: Invention + Entrepreneurship are now courses taught to graduate students in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

The objective of Blockchain Technologies and Cryptocurrencies as an academic course of study is described by the University of Toronto in the U of T News, “This course will provide students with the concepts and mechanics of the blockchain technologies starting with Bitcoin, allowing them to identify business-relevant benchmarking criteria for blockchain technologies in accordance with their current and future impact on business processes.” 

Cryptocurrency has come a long way since Bitcoin was introduced ten years ago by Nakamoto. The study of blockchain technology by international universities in Qatar, Stanford, and Edinburgh validate Nakamoto’s global influence at the post-secondary education level.

The recent cyber-attack on StFX’s network is a reminder for our readers to remain critical and inform themselves before investing in cryptocurrency.

Enterprise systems professor David Mattie, who has over twenty years of experience in the IT services industry commented on the breach, “All it takes is one guy penetrating one server, out of our 500, to have all of StFXs data compromised. We spend the same amount of money as the University of Toronto does in our IT department, but we are always susceptible to being hacked. It does not matter how much money you spend on IT, you will never be able to be 100% secure unfortunately.”

StFX continues to investigate the matter and have yet to identify the culprit responsible for the cyber- attack.

Frank Landry Preserves Acadian Phonetics in Writing

An unpublished interview with legendary Acadian author

Yanik Gallie interviews Frank Landry at the Starbucks coffee house in Chapters at the location in Dieppe, New-Brunswick during the summer of 2015. 

***

YG : Comment sta commencer par écrire dans les journaux?

FL : J’ai écrit pour 3 journaux. J’ai mis 25 ans pour le Moniteur, ptête moins. En total, 33 ans ‘going on’ 34, ce qui inclue la vie de Delphine. Avant ça, j’écrivais un autre caractère qui s’appelait Old Josh. J’ai une fascination pour la phonetic, pi j’aime d’être un raconteux d’histoire. J’ai un background en sociologie. Sociologie veut dire tu fais beaucoup d’recherche. J’ai aussi pris des cours d’anthropologie. Ça ne me met pas plus intéressant, j’dis ink que y’avait des affaires importantes que j’avais été appris quansse tu fais d’la recherche, comme y faut que tu préserves des tels moments dans une histoire. 

Quand j’ai arrivé à Halifax, j’avais écrit Old Josh, les phonetics d’un Cap Bretonner. J’tais un gars de Shédiac pi phonétique cer toute que j’faisais. J’ai pensé pourquoi n’pas préserver la phonétique de cosse qué le chiac? 

J’ai commencé à faire du théâtre itou quand j’ai back arrivé de Halifax. Cer vraiment un journaliste par le nom de Daniel Chrétien qui travaillait pour un journal qu’est arrivé a moi. Pour qaziment un an de temps, on allait au Pizza Delight à Shédiac. J’enseignais des cours d’art le jour, pi le soir on s’flaquait tute là, la gang, pi on parlait pi on cacossait over une bière chaque jeudi pour quasiment un an de temps. Daniel disait, “pi Frank tu devrais p’tête bin commencer à écrire des histouaires.” Pi moi chavais pas si j’voulais faire ça. Jusqu’à temps que quelqu’un nous a dit voulez-vous vous taire parce que vraiment cecitte cer rendu tannant pi j’veux pas back vous entendre parce que sois que vous l’faites ou taissez-vous. Cecitte cer le mois d’Octobre. J’noublirais jamais, tout d’un coup j’ai dit j’va essayer d’écrire. J’ai écrit. J’ai introduit mon caractère dans le journal pi j’ai dit j’va écrire jusqu’à noël. Trois mois, j’ai pensé, ça ne lastera pas… chavais pas cossé jm’embarquais dedans. So, j’ai arrêté à Noël, j’ai même dit mes goodbyes. Tout d’un coup, le premier mercredi du mois de Février j’ai la phone call du newspaper qui dit, “pourrais-tu mnir au bureau du journal faut tu viennes ramonsser ton courriel?” Moi, j’mattendais d’avoir tête bin une lettre, deux lettres. Tu sais les gros sacs de garbage orange? Ceux d’Halloween, yen avait trois et demi à craquer de lettres: Delphine faut q’tu viennes back on t’trouve comique pi dadada... Moi chu overwhelmed at this point because j’avais toutemps ma joie de vivre comme un artiste. Peinturer, dessiner, animer parce que j’ai un background en arts visuel, c’étaient mon plaisir. 

J’aimais écrire pour le journal but j’écrivais déjà des lettres funny à mes friends. C’nétait pas les histouaires, c’tait plutôt parler about moi. Comme faire amine té au collège pi j’tenvois une lettre qui dit “Le chien à manger la jambe de bois à mon père.” J’aurais pu t’écrire des niaiseries d’même but c’tait jamais Delphine. C’tait toutemps Frank avec des jokes pi j’tarrais même écrit su du papier de toilette pour dire. Ju endjablé comme sa, ju un joueur de tours. 

Après ça, le journal appartenait à Irving at the time, L’Express. L’Express n’a pas duré plus qu’un an et demi avant de fermer ces portes. Daniel Chrétien qui travaillait pour eux, lui a starter à travailler pour l’Acadie Nouvelle. Daniel a vendu l’idée à l’Acadie Nouvelle qu’on devrait experimenter. J’va être vraiment honnête, je l’enjoyais pi je l’enjoyais pas parceque ça qu’arrive cer que l’journal allait dans l’nord pi beaucoup d’monde n’appréciait pas ce genre de writing. Y’a du monde qui croiait c’était un language pas vrai que j’inventais. À moment donné, j’ai venu à un point ousser que moi j’voulais vraiment arrêter. J’en avais déjà parlé avec un Monsieur qu’était là pi j’ai dit, “jpense pas. I don’t think its gonna work anymore.” Lui ma appelé pi y’a dit p’tête bin c’est une bonne idée qu’on arrêterait, mais tu sais que tu peux faire autres choses. J’navais pas été firer, on avait parlé pi c’était alright so j’ai arrêté. J’navais pas le tchoeur de cassé. J’était comme, cer fine. 

Eventuellement, Le Moniteur vient me chercher. But, ça prit du temps avant que j’ai dit oui au Moniteur. J’était assis dans l’mall à Shédiac, au restaurant, pi j’ai dit, “j’va y penser.” Y’a dit, “ben non, ben y faut.” J’ai dit, “jva y penser.” Pi j’étais vraiment right là pi j’ai dit la vraie vérité de cosse jpensais. Parce que, à moment donné quansse j’écrivais dans l’Express, le Moniteur, whoever qui travaillait là à l’époque, attackait Delphine. J’ai encore les chroniques anti-Delphine publiées par le Moniteur de sauvé. So, ej n’voulais pas vraiment aller travailler pour l’enemie at the time. Le monde de par chenous me connaissait comme quelqun qui fsait des fundraiser d’la communauté, eux ont été au Moniteur pour dire “wowow! Sais-tu quissse que t’attaques icitte?”

Gisèle qui travail au Moniteur, bless her soul, j’la connaissait ben. Elle m’appel pi elle dit,  “Frank, I hope tu mind pas…tatata…”  J’ai dit, “j’va l’essayer.” J’lai essayé pi it’s been like a big family ever since. C’était pu les mêmes personnes qu’étions là, c’était une nouvelle dynamique avec Gisèle pi Betty qui travaillent au Moniteur. Betty est vraiment une personne fantastique. Le monde là, y fsont du cheering on. C’est eux qui m’appellent défois pour me laisser sawaire cossé quer la feel des tels affaires. Une joke c’est la fois qui voulions faire une nudist beach à Shediac. J’avais entendu ça pi j’ai dit, “c’tu vrai?” Yon dit, “ouaille.” J’ai dit, “ben moi j’croix j’va explorer l’histoire.” J’ai parlé que Delphine s’avait décidé qu’elle allait aller faire du bird watching parceque cer intéressant ouaire les oiseaux. Elle a arrivé à la fin pi elle a dit, “Imaginez-vous si y’aurrait des grous signs en sortant d’la beach qui met: Bienvenues d’avoir nues par chenous.” Parceque on n’dit pas, “venu.” Nous autes on dit, “t’as nues chenous ein?” It was a play on word. Ça quej fait cer qu’ej joue avec les mots. J’amène aussi des vieilles expressions dans mes écritures.

YG : Parle-moi de la naissance de Delphine.

FL : Delphine est née hors de rien. It came out of nothingness. On f’sait des carnivals d’hivers et des soirées amateurs. So, tout d’un coup moi j’utais cosse t’appelles un character performer. Ça veut dire, n’importe quoi tu m’aurais donné comme prop, j’peux improviser avec comme le best of the best. Jutais d’le backroom au carnaval d’hivers pis j’utais censé être un cowboy. J’allais sortir dehors pi j’savais pas cosse j’allais m’appeler. Tout d’un coup, y’ont dit,  ‘la suit de cowboy n’te fit pas!’ Y’ont amener une peruque verte de Marywitch. Y’ont amener un gros chapeau de Cowboy en foam de Calgary Stampedes. Pi la, y mon flaqué une robe. J’ai dit ‘vous êtes pas bin j’veux pas porter cecitte!’ J’ai fait la joke en sortant, j’ai dit ‘si jamais que j’suis discoveré comme cecitte j’va vous suer.’ J’ai sorti su l’stage pi chavais pas cosse j’allais faire. J’pouvais pas même jouer la guitare, j’avais ink une guitare avec une corde dedsu. J’ai sorti en avant pis j’mai introduit. J’ai dit, “ser moi la reine du carnival. J’u la reine, j’viens juste de gagné un concours de Countré. J’viens d’haute-aboujagane pi mon nom cer Delphine BB Bosse!” Cer toute j’ai dit pis j’ai fessé su la guitare. J’savais pas comment jouer but le monde dansait. Cer ste temps là j’ai pensé à moi-même le monde sont pas trop bright parce qui sont entrain de danser à cosse j’chante. J’men rappel des premières paroles que j’ai chanté, “chanter du countré cer po mal aisé, chanter du countré cer chanté du nez.” Pis lmonde sa dansais pi sa s’garochait. 

Normally, moi j’faisais jamais back les caractères à deux fois. So, j’va faire comme les Golden Girls su l’TV la vieille-là. Picture this : L’année suivante, j’arrive pi moi j’avais l’intention de faire d’autres caractères pi le président du carnaval d’hivers Mr. Raymond Leblanc avait parlé t’au monde pi y’avais dit tu devrais dire à Frank qui refasse ce caractère-là. Y’on dit “tu vas aoir un argument avec lui si tu plan ça.” Pi dans l’temps j’nécrivais pas encore, c’était ink des monologues en Chiac. J’arrive là pi j’wois l’grous chapeau de cowboy. J’ai dit, “Non! Cossé qué ça?” Y’ont dit, “ah, non, on va juste te faire picker d’quoi d’autre.” Come to find out, j’tais back Delphine. J’ai sorti avec Delphine pi les Poutines parce que y’aviont trouvé deux personnes pour être des chanteuses en arrière. Une des chansons qu’on avait jouée c’était “Hey Hey Good Looking” jl’ai chanté à la Delphine. Delphine chante mal vraiment, but Delphine dans sa brain elle est une légende. You have to remember, she’s bigger than life. Elle a la permission de dire ça qu’à veut. Ousse que moi, Frank Landry, j’noserais pas dire la motché des affaires qu’à dirait. Elle est devenue comme la reincarnation, ou ptête, l’influence de toutes les femmes fortes que moi j’ai connu dans ma famille. 

YG : Cossé qué ton writing process?

FL : J’écris d’avance. J’écris, j’mets la date. J’dit, “Ok, ça parrait ben… J’l’envois. J’ai des souvenirs de jokes but pour te dire spécifiquement cosse qu’était toute dans l’histoire : chepas. Moi j’nécris pas pour m’assir pi composer. J’m’assis là pour être un raconteur d’histoire. C’est là ousque creative writing rentre en jeux. Ça veut dire que faut que j’trust les fantômes du gernier. Tous les samedi matin, j’massis à l’ordinateur avec aucune conception vraiment de cosse j’écris: j’m’assis là. Ça sonne esoteric cosse j’va dire, but it’s not meant to be like weird la, c’est que j’m’ai appris à m’truster moi-même. J’m’ai appris à truster que j’peux écrire, que j’peux raconter n’importe quoi. J’peux picker anything. J’pourrais parler about ton chapeau right now. J’composerais dequoi à la Delphine, qui peut être super hilarious. Si j’m’aperçois qu’ton chapeau n’fit pas dans l’histoire de Delphine, ben ça peut aller ptête bin à Hen-Henri ou jpeux l’fitter cheque part… pi c’est ça qu’a été le gros, gros défis: de jamais me répéter. Toutemps essayer d’garder la fraicheur d’un écrivain. Pi c’pas d’la great literature que j’fais. J’me oit comme Jane Goodall, elle qu’a fait les grosses recherches de singes. Tu vas t’moquer d’cosse j’va dire. C’est que moi j’u un follower de Jane Goodall. J’veux dire que ju dans une société pi j’observe, j’écoute. So, les singes sont vraiment le monde qui viennent de Shédiac. J’les appel pas des singes, j’dit ink que moi j’les observe pi je suis devenue cosse t’appelle une réflexion de quisse qu’eux sont. 

YG : Cosser que cer du chiac, des acadiens pi acadiennes?

FL : La naissance du chiac a mnu de la nécessité de survie au travail. Sé l’affaire la plus importante, pi l’monde ne te dit pas ça. Y ton dit que y’ont fusés parce qu’ils viviont ensemble, but la vraie nécessité de l’assimilation était pour survivre au travail. La plupart du monde qui gérait les entreprises à l’époque, c’tait les Anglais. Honestly, c’pas dire “les maudits Anglais aviont tute comme qu’à été les années d’acadie.” C’est, “Par chance aux Anglais que l’monde de Shediac a pu faire vivre leurs familles. Moi j’veux célébrer ça.”

J’veut t’dire une affaire qu’a influencé Delphine plus tard. C’est durant les années d’acadie, acadie, pi ya du monde qui va pas believer cossé j’vas dire. Quansse everybody avait dropper une tête de cochon, whatever qu’était l’histoire, c’était, “Les maudits Anglais.” Moi pi mon bon sens de ptit jeune, j’avais appris que tu peux bagueler tute qu’tu veux mais à moment donné, l’monde nt’écoute pu. J’ai appris de thinking outside the box jeune, vraiment jeune, que moi j’voulais être le future dans toute cecitte. J’ai rencontré des personnes d’influence à l’époque, qu’ont vraiment des grosses jobs de decision makers dans la province steur. Y’ont vraiment travaillé pour pi y’ont maintenu la philosophie qu’était à nous autres. Moi jviens d’se gang là oussé qu’y’ont dit ‘On arrête de bagueller. À la place de bagueller, why not si vous mettez une gang ensemble, une bunch de français pi pooler tute vos argents ensemble, pi startez-vous une business! Engager some of your own people, comme du monde de votre backyard. 

Three Rings in Five Years for Rugby Team

Tournament all-star Joanna Alphonso comments on ‘killing the bird’

Yanik Gallie interviewed Joanna Alphonso on November 6, 2018 in The Xaverian Weekly office. Alphonso is a tight-head prop for X-Women Rugby.

***

YG: Congrats on the big win. Talk to me about the game and how you prepared for the final?

JA: Going into the game, we weren’t favoured to win. That was a big cloud over our head. We knew that no team could stop us if we played 100%. Going into the game, coach Mike told us to starve their back line of the ball. That’s exactly what we did. Their #10 was really shifty and we were able to shut her down. That was our whole game plan. 

We kept possession for most of the game. Our big forwards did the job to get those tries. Our backs did a good job tackling. It was an all-around team effort.

YG: You mention coach Mike in your answer. How has the coaching team been supportive of the rugby team this year?

JA: We have amazing coaches. Mike, our head coach, Tara, our forwards’ coach, John, our scrum-half coach, and Allison our backs’ coach, they have worked with us day in and day out. They are there from 5pm to 6:30pm with us teaching us the little skills that we need to win a national championship. Definitely, Mike is a rugby genius. There’s nothing Mike doesn’t know about rugby and that helps when he’s teaching us things that help us win. Tara is amazing. She is our forwards’ coach so I work personally with her. Since I’ve been in first year, Tara has been there for me. She always had my back and she always will. John and Allison both hold special positions on our team as well. They help these individuals excel to their best ability. 

YG: Tara has been around for the three rings in the last five years. What does the third and final ring mean to you?

Sports Photos NS

JA: This ring is bittersweet as I don’t have any more years of eligibility. It’s also bittersweet because I think that I was part of something really special. Our rugby team is like no other. It’s a family. Those girls are there on your worst days and on your best. They pick you up whenever you need it and they have your back always. There’s always someone there when you need to talk. Also, the fact that we weren’t favoured to win the tournament. We’ve had a lot of confrontation with other teams saying that we shouldn’t have won our games. We’ve proven time and time again that we deserve the win. Our hard work definitely paid off in the end. It’s awesome to know that respect has been put on our names now because we pulled off the title. 

YG: You’ve shared this expression on social media that some of our readers might not be familiar with and it’s ‘killing the bird.’ What’s the story behind this expression? 

JA: Before we go to nationals every year we have a breakfast with Kent MacDonald and Leo MacPherson, the president of the university and our Athletic Director respectively. They give us all their well wishes. We have some loyal fans like Father Stan and Sister Jovita who come to the breakfast as well with our coaching staff and players. Every year, Mike says a speech but this year the speech was special. He stood up and he said, “We’re like cats. We get birds and we beat them up a bit and we let them go. We beat them up some more and let them go. We do that to teams all the time. We give them hell and then we let them off the hook and back off. Stop playing around, just go out there and kill the bird.”

We took that motto into the tournament. It was so fitting because every game when we took the field, that’s what kept us going. “We got to kill the bird because we can. We know that we have it, so let’s kill it.” Our last game was against the Guelph Gryphons, which is a bird, so we put it to rest.

The Best Stories Live in Hell

Tips on how to write good drama and more from Lawrence Hill

Renowned novelist and screenwriter Lawrence Hill spoke in Schwartz auditorium on Friday, October 19. Hill opened by speaking of the latest novel the professor of creative writing at Guelph University is currently writing. The release date of his book, announced to be titled Midnight Men at the event, has yet to be made official.

Hill was warmly welcomed to the stage by Kalista Desmond and the Strait Regional Drummers band. Desmond performed some new spoken word. A particularly moving line was “#powerfulnotpowerless”       encouraging women to own their empowerment. 

The drum group led by Morgan Gero performed three songs. Gero left her seat to distribute instruments to colleagues in the audience for a collaborative performance while her skilled drummers held the rhythm. Drummer Isaiah Williams spoke with The Xaverian Weekly post-show. Williams spoke about his favorite moment on Friday night, “I liked when I played the drums to welcome him here. One of the songs we played tonight was ‘Fonga’.” 

Hill made the point of showing his appreciation for the drumming performance. Williams, who has been drumming for two years, remembers how after their performance, “Lawrence said it reminded him of drumming he heard when he was in West Africa and being welcomed to villages.” 

 During his time at the lectern, Hill read excerpts from The Book of Negroes and spoke in detail about imagery and other realistic or fictional literary elements in the novel. One thing he mentioned was that the novel is not about slavery; it is about the resilience of a woman. 

During the question and answer period, Hill said that while his parents were not thrilled he desired to become a writer, they were instrumental in his upbringing as an author. 

Referring to some of the nonsense poetry that his mother read to him as a child, Lawrence recited from memory the first verse of “Disobedience” by A. A. Milne to a laughing audience.

Williams asked Hill how long it took to write The Book of Negroes. Hill answered, “It took me five years. I rewrote the book eight times. That’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. To spend the time researching, writing, and rewriting, editing, rereading, and publishing over five years before I was satisfied. 

“I wrote some other books along the way, it wasn’t the only one I did. Most writers have to do two or three different kinds of writing at a time to get money. Sometimes things you really care about that are really difficult take time. You have to let them gestate. Let them have the time that they need and they will take over from there. You are ill-advised to rush something if it’s coming along well. If you give it some time, it has a chance to get better. 

By the way, unless you’re born with the genius of Mozart, chances are the first time you write something it’ll stink. That means you have to write it again, again, and again until it’s good. One of the reasons The Book of Negroes took five years is because it was so bad the first time. You have to keep working on it. Thank you for your question and your drumming.” 

Emcees Addy Strickland and Rebecca Mesay brought the event to a close by asking Williams to come back on stage for the presentation of a gift to Hill. 

The author stuck around post-show to meet the audience and sign everything from books to a case for glasses. 

Prior to speaking publicly at StFX in the evening, Hill spoke privately at Dr. John Hugh Gillis high school with 80 students from neighbouring high schools in the morning. The intimate student-led discussion was held with students who had read and researched a novel of his in the classroom. 

Even though Hill has travelled back home to Ontario, his authenticity and wisdom remain cherished in the community.

Mawiomi in Bloomfield Centre

A baby step towards truth and reconciliation

On Wednesday, October 3, a Mawiomi livened up Bloomfield Centre starting 1pm. Traditional dances took place throughout the afternoon in the McKay Room and merchandise tables were setup in the adjacent room along with gratis coffee, tea, water and food.

Astonishing dances unique to dancers in beautiful regalia like Brooklyn Bernard’s performance moved to the rhythm of the drummers and singers’ group. Bernard is from Paq’tnkek First Nation, one of many community members at the event.

Other dances were intertribal, meaning people of all cultures were welcomed to join in the dance. I participated in my second Round Dance, a traditional healing ceremony, that was again uplifting for the spirit and a learning experience.

Kerry Prosper is the Knowledge Keeper on campus and attended the event. Prosper is a Band Council member from Paq’tnkek who is co-author of “Returning to Netukulimk: Mi’kmaq cultural and spiritual connections with resource stewardship and self-governance” and Sustainability Planning and Collaboration in Rural Canada: Taking the Next Steps.

Prosper commented on the significance of having a Mawiomi on campus, “This institution has been here, in Mi’kma’ki, for over a hundred years and it has never really accommodated indigenous cultures. For me it’s a real learning process to have everybody here. The faculty, students and population participating is an important part of Truth and Reconciliation. One of the key things that we have to do is get together, sing, dance, eat and share knowledge. Through that, I think things may change for our kids and future generations. These experiences of living together with a better understanding of each other’s culture on this piece of land that we’re going to be a part of for the rest of our lives are important.

Photo: Phoebe Cseresnyes

With all the current issues we are having in Canada, and many other countries that are battling, between the indigenous people and the people who came and took over the land there certainly has to be some kind of reconciliation.

Little things like holding a Mawiomi on campus can go a long way. A piece of bread and soup can go a long way in bringing us together. I can see a benefit for future students who are coming here. Someday, students in education might be teaching in educational institutions about our culture. It can only be beneficial for everybody and this is just a small part of reconciliation.

I felt really comfortable today with everybody and being a part of this institution for my community and our people being here for supporting students. I know the youth from our community felt good about it.

It’s a two-way thing where we don’t really come here either. There could have been more of our people here today. I think once they see a presence in here from their own community and culture, people will be more inclined to take part of events here. Vice-versa, we’ve had powwows and people from here didn’t think they were invited or welcomed to our powwow. Powwows are open for everybody.

At one time, white people weren’t allowed on reservations at certain times of the year and there was a curfew back in the 40s-50s-60s. They would say you better be out of here by dark because we’re not responsible for what happens to you and that type of thing. People grew up saying don’t go near reserves because you can’t trust Indians. That mentality had been passed down from them to their kids. Sure enough, it made its way through schools, high schools and post-secondary institutions. Now we’re a part of a future education. It’s time for us to shed those ideas and learn because we’re becoming a part of the education system and you got to learn what’s real: We’re gonna face future uncertainties together and we’re gonna have to work together. The time of indifference is going, and it’s gone.

All you have to do is look out at the world and see the trouble we’re having. People come here, to this land, to escape what they were going through, and they are welcomed with open arms. The perpetrators who came here in the past and did things like what happened with residential schools have caused a trans-generational trauma that has been passed on. You hurt your own people because that’s all you know.

You got to understand both sides. Our kids are gonna live without that experience and we’re gonna create a better world for everybody moving forward.”

Mike Stern Performs at Schwartz Auditorium

Jazz legend’s stellar performance at StFX wows the audience

Distinguished guitarist Mike Stern performed a full band concert at Schwartz auditorium during the evening of October 1, 2018.

In the Spring of 2014, Stern, Artist-in-Residence, hosted two hands-on jazz clinics with students and a concert in Nicholson Hall.

What do Blood, Sweat & Tears and Billy Cobham have in common? They both signed Stern while he was in his 20s. The jazz maestro then got a break when Miles Davis brings him onboard Davis’ own comeback album The Man with the Horn in 1981.

150 people gathered to listen at Stern’s full jazz band. Music alumna of StFX, Sam Wilson, was in the audience at both StFX shows in 2014 and 2018. Having made the trip down from Halifax, Wilson commented “Mike played with so much joy tonight. I drove from Halifax to get re-inspired to go home and play. Even with an injury, Mike was resilient and sounded as great as he did in 2014.”

Wilson refers to an injury that happened in 2016. In New York City nearby Stern’s apartment, he fell and broke both humerus bones while hailing a cab before leaving for tour two years ago on July 3.

The incident left nerve damage that impaired his ability to hold a pick with the right hand. As a result, Stern glues the pick to his hand in order to hold it in place while he strums.

His injury did not keep Stern from the recording studio for long. The dedicated musician released a comeback solo album Trip in the fall of 2017.

Stern has been on tour since then. The band lineup at his most recent StFX performance features Stern on guitar, Tom Easley on bass, Kenji Omae on saxophone and Tom Roach on drums. Easley, Omae and Roach are professors of Music at StFX.

Speaking with a reporter from The Xaverian Weekly after the show, Stern mentions how this second visit is a special return to campus, “The acoustics in the auditorium are beautiful and the talented musicians I played with tonight were fantastic. Always a great energy on campus. It’s a privilege to be back and I think I’ll enrol if I get invited here again.”

Photo: Andrew Conde

Once in a while, when the band was jamming, Stern would shout “Yeah, man!” or stick his tongue out. The musician from Boston, Massachusetts was unreserved, intimate and funny.

The band brought to life the classic “Red House” from Are You Experienced by The Jimi Hendrix Experience as the encore song. Stern claimed it to be the only song from Hendrix he knows how to play, and he played it masterfully.

“It’s the best performance I’ve seen here. Mike is a gifted guitarist and vocalist who has performed with the likes of Miles Davis. Fusions particularly stood out for me. Mike usually plays in unison with the saxophone, bass and his back and forth with the drummer tonight was mesmerizing.” Said jazz student Jerry Ko post-show.

Stern stuck around to meet Ko and other audience members after the concert and sold out all copies of his latest album Trip.

While the performance was stellar, a part of me questions why the best venue on campus was booked for Stern on Treaty Day?

Our Treaty Day event, including the appointment of Kerry Prosper as Knowledge Keeper, is undermined when hosted in the lower-quality venue with fewer seating.

Stern goes on to play gigs in Paraguay, Norway, Belgium and Germany among other places around the world in the next two months.

The traveling musician leaves a lasting impression on our university. Stern’s infectious passion for jazz inspires just about anyone to pick up and play an instrument.

Joseph Khoury Interview

Professor at StFX now editor of Tudor and Stuart Book Series

Joseph Khoury was interviewed by Yanik Gallie on September 19, 2018. Khoury is editor of the Tudor and Stuart Book Series at The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS). The CRRS is a part of Victoria University at the University of Toronto and is governed, under the leadership of its Director, by faculty committees linked to each other in the Centre’s activities: library collections, academic programs, early modern programs, and scholarly publications.

Joseph Khoury is Associate Professor of English at St Francis Xavier University. He studied Political Philosophy and Comparative Literature and specializes in Machiavelli, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. Joseph also teaches, and has published on, the Arabic Novel. His critical edition of Barnabe Riche’s The Adventures of Brusanus, Prince of Hungaria (1592), a political romance used as a source by Shakespeare in several of his plays, has garnered highly favourable reviews. He is currently working on a monograph on Machiavelli and his influence on Shakespeare. Joseph has published articles on Machiavelli, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Aimé Césaire, and William Thomas (tutor to Edward VI). Joseph is involved in theatre and in 2015 served as Juror for the Governor-General’s Literary Prize (English Non-Fiction). Joseph received the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2016.

***

YG: Why is the preservation of history and culture important today?

JK: I think it’s always important to preserve history and culture. We often discover that some of the stuff that was preserved has been suppressed and that’s not good. If you want to learn the truth about something, you have to make sure it’s available. Some of these books may not have been suppressed, but certainly they had their use at the time; Sometimes they are just forgotten. There may not have been many of them printed. Some were only printed in manuscript for example, that would have circulated widely. We know that a lot of books, poems, literature of different kinds like political tracts or biographies, were only circulated in manuscript. Some of them have never been printed, ever. If one could show that a manuscript was important, how it was important and how influential it was, therefore, now it’s time to print it so that today’s scholars have access. To be a part of that process is exciting.

Just to give you an example of an important book that circulated only in manuscript is George Cavendish’s The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey. That manuscript was circulated widely, but I think it’s first printing was over a hundred years later and that’s important because it gave us a lot of insight about the relationship between Cardinal Wolsey and Henry.  Obviously, it circulated enough back in the day that Shakespeare used it in his co-author play Henry VIII. Making sure that some of those documents are available to us today is significant. Students certainly can stand to benefit from it because they are on the verge of making discoveries, if their professors bring these into the classroom and that’s always exciting. 

YG: Have you worked directly with those manuscripts?

JK: I have worked with some manuscripts. Obviously, I wouldn’t be the only one. I would rely on the scholars to make the case that a particular book should be published. I already have several inquiries. One from England, another from the US, and a third from Canada. Each of them has to make their case. Some books I have heard of before, others I haven’t.

One in particular, and I can’t specify right now because it’s still in progress, is an interesting work written by a woman. It’s a sixteenth century text that has never been made available before. It gives us historical perspective on some important events. That would be really, really exciting, if we can make the project happen. Especially for the scholarship today that makes sure all the voices are brought to the floor.

YG: When a manuscript goes to print, I imagine there are discrepancies in the text between the original and reproduction. How do you honor the original text?

JK: We want to make sure the books are readable which means that we modernize the spelling and grammar very conservatively. We don’t want to change the tone or the ideas that are presented. Modernize the spelling to be consistent because they did not have consistent spelling, grammar or punctuation in those days. If you play with the text too much, you destroy the meaning and the tone. Tone is very important. Meaning also happens through tone and we don’t want to destroy that, but we want the text to be readable. 

That’s always difficult to weigh. Sometimes, I’m not sure about this word or this sentence.  You take your best shot, but then you note it by saying this is the original. You try to keep those at a minimum, but sometimes you have no choice. We have lost words whose meaning is not the same anymore. A lot of words have a changed meaning now, some of them mean the opposite as they used to. A lot of those words would be glossed. We have to do that, because you don’t want to misunderstand the text because the meaning has changed. We don’t want to get in the way of the reading, but at the same time we make sure that a modern reader understands. Natural language changes daily and we must accept that, but at the same time be aware of it. 

YG: Can you describe your comparatist philosophy?

JK: I firmly believe that we know ourselves only through comparison. That’s Hegelian, of course. I think it’s correct. In other words, if we don’t try to understand ourselves by comparing to other people, then we would never truly understand ourselves or the other people. The same goes with literature.

In literature, the idea of a national literature is a modern concept. It was actually born in the 19 century. Before that, we would study all literature including Greek, Roman, French and German. It’s only in the 19 century and made worst in the 20 century in North America largely with unilingualism which I think is a sad case. Most of the world is at least bilingual, trilingual, quadrilingual. I think reading and understanding literatures of other cultures helps us to understand ourselves and the other. In a way, we’re going back to the Renaissance when this was the norm. All the educated people in the Renaissance read Italian, Latin, I mean queen Elizabeth was fluent in all the languages of the realm and in addition, she knew Greek, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Basically, she knew 10 languages. Trying to work with different languages of various cultures is really important. It builds healthier relationships and more understanding. Comparative literature allows us to understand ourselves by comparing cultures. Other cultures have something to teach us. I think it’s the nature of humanity. It’s only in the 19 century that universities started to focus on national literature. I’ve never accepted that. I’m proud to be a comparatist and that’s how I teach as well. My work has always focused on comparative literature and philosophy. I look at how ideas travel to other cultures or when they come to our home culture, how are they adopted? I’ve always found that interesting because it tells us a lot about ourselves and how we see others. 

This work as editor does the same thing. A lot of writers in the Tudor and Stuart ages, they borrowed a lot of ideas. Some of them translated other works into English, but they made so many changes that they produce, not only a new work, but also a new way of looking at the original work. Why did they choose to alter? Why not? It tells us about how we look at ourselves and others. Sometimes they had a love-hate relationship with language. They adored Italy, but they also hated Italy. They adored Italy’s literature and philosophy, and then hated its religion, in England especially after the break from Rome. They also fancied its fashion, yet they mock it at the same time. They’re doing it better, but we don’t want to admit that they’re doing it better than us. Again, they give us new perspectives to think about. We forget that almost a third of Shakespeare’s plays are set in Italy. The setting says something. That’s one of many examples. It’s interesting that the earliest sonnets were actually translations of Petrarch’s sonnets. Yeah, they’re new poems, they’re not just translations. The interpretations were so beautiful that they are their own poems in their own right. The comparative element is exciting, but that was the natural thing for the Renaissance. Today, we think we are doing something new that they have already been doing. For me, it’s my natural home. I’ve always been a comparatist and I find it interesting. 

The Xaverian Weekly's Article Published in Atlantis

Mount Saint Vincent University’s Atlantis gets rights to second publication

A creative work written by Katherina Hirschfeld and Rhea Ashley Hoskin originally published in The Xaverian Weekly gets a second round of exposure in Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, & Social Justice, a Mount Saint Vincent University journal. 

Hirschfeld discusses the writing process of this edition “Rhea just completed her PhD, so she has been involved in research and writing longer than I have. As an undergraduate student with no published works whatsoever, I was fairly intimidated. But writing a manifesto was a great way to start collaborating together. As an English major, I am more familiar with the mechanics of poetry than Rhea. As a seasoned academic, Rhea has a breadth of knowledge about theory and the publication process. We both brought our own assets to the table and it resulted in a very balanced undertaking. Plus, we’re friends who often talk about our own research together. So, hanging out and writing a femme call-to-arms together was so much fun!”

Pursuing a Master of Arts degree at Acadia university after graduating from a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours, Hirschfeld said “My undergraduate degree from StFX really prepared me for the rigor of a master’s program. I did my BA English Honours degree at StFX, which required me to write a thesis paper. Not all universities offer a thesis option in an undergrad, and because of that opportunity I learned a lot about how to conduct more significant research and literary analysis than any term paper would require. As a result, I feel very confident and well-equipped for my master’s degree.

Not only did my time at StFX prepare me for the significant amounts of writing and research involved in a master’s degree, but it also prepared me for an academic career by supporting and offering conference experiences. I presented my thesis at Student Research Day as well as at the English Colloquium during my graduating year. Both were followed with a Q&A period, which I have never experienced before. Writing is one thing, but answering questions about your own research on the spot is a crucial skillset for academia as well as a legal career (which I hope to pursue after my master’s degree). That same summer, I also had the unique opportunity to present a poster about my thesis at the annual Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) conference with the assistance of the Jules Léger Endowment. All of these opportunities have allowed me to grow more as an academic, and I do not think I would have had the same chances to do so at a larger institution.”

Photo: Madeleine Killacky

Hoskin is an instructor at the StFX Student Success Centre and a doctoral student at Queen’s University in the Department of Sociology. She notes that “This creative piece was inspired primarily by our own experiences as queer femmes – who like to eat, love to lift, and feel empowered by our femininity – something that, for many people, seems contradictory. We wanted to expand on our own experiences of being femme and how we navigate some of the complexities and intersections of our own femininity, to also consider the varied embodiments of femininity, and what it means to re-value femininity in a world that seems to fairly consistently (and pervasively) tell us that femininity isn’t something to be valued.” 

Photo: Dr. Karen Blair

The abstract of their work emphasizes the piece’s intention of encouraging the “reader to think beyond femininity’s articulation as a source of oppression to, instead, consider how it can be reframed as a form of resistance.” Readers who ponder this piece rethink “femininity” critically. 

Hoskin says “resistance comes in many forms, of course. In this particular context, we use resistance as something that pushes back against oppressive norms – norms that systematically divide and subordinate individuals.  Resistance offers ways to re-imagine, to uproot reductive or determinist views of oneself and each other. 

Think about it this way – in order to resist, we need to be able to imagine the possibilities that exist outside of an oppressive structure. Femme, to us and to many others, offers such a re-imagining – whether it’s to re-imagine the beauty of fat bodies, the worth of queerness, the strength in vulnerability, or to re-imagine the boundless gender possibilities that exist outside the gender binary.” 

Hirschfeld remarks “society can put a lot of pressure on us to perform in certain ways. Identities are put in boxes, and each box carries expectations with respect to appearance, behavior, mannerisms, and so on. To me, resistance happens when you refuse to comply with those societal conventions. Resistance against heteronormative assumptions can occur in various ways. Writing ‘A Femme Manifesto’ is a form of resistance. Rhea and I have both recognized and experienced certain societal pressures to present ourselves a certain way, and often feel the weight of feminine assumptions, so creating a piece about refusing the standards placed on us is empowering. It gave us a voice and helped us to claim a visibility that’s often denied to femme-identifying individuals.”

Hirschfeld is writing a thesis on representations of time within queer narratives at Acadia. She mentions, “much like our published creative piece, though, my master’s thesis also focuses on forms of resistance. I am investigating the relationship between subject and temporality within queer narratives. Our understanding of time, much like our understanding of identities and sexualities, is often based on normative assumptions and conventions. My research investigates how time is treated differently within several queer narratives and what those differences signify. I’m hoping to submit one of my chapters to Rhea’s Call for Papers on Femme Theory.”

Hoskin is busy as well, having already published two research collaborations “Transgender exclusion from the world of dating: Patterns of acceptance and rejection of hypothetical trans dating partners as a function of sexual and gender identity” and “Ameliorating transnegativity: assessing the immediate and extended efficacy of a pedagogic prejudice reduction intervention” this year. 

“‘Beyond Aesthetics’ is actually my first creative piece, Katerina’s too I think. I am first and foremost a researcher, so this was entirely a new venture for me. It has, however, opened some interesting venues or opportunities that I hadn’t previously considered. Katerina and I are definitely going to collaborate in the future, but it will likely take the form of a critical essay.

I do have some exciting non-creative projects coming up! Well, I’m sure all projects require some degree of creativity. I’m currently guest-editing two special issues for international LGBT+ journals. The first issue is for the Journal of Lesbian Studies and will focus on the application of Femme Theory. The second will be co-edited with Dr. Blair, and will be a special issue on Critical Femininities for the journal of Psychology & Sexuality. We’ve heard some really great feedback and have already started receiving submissions. 

My upcoming research project examines how anti-femininity drives much of the violence we’ve seen in Canada over the past 40 years; for example, the Montreal Massacre, the alleged Incel Rebellion, missing and murdered Indigenous women, the rates at which trans women and trans women of colour are murdered, or even serial killers Bruce McArthur and Russel Williams. These acts of violence all share a commonality, which I argue is how we, as a society, see and devalue femininity.” 

Hirschfeld and Hoskin will likely work together again in the future. Hoskin comments “While I imagine plenty of collaborations with Rhea in the future – or should I say, Dr. Hoskin – I’m currently focusing on my masters and in the process of applying to law school.” Both researchers continue to make notable contributions to Femme, queer and transgender theories. 

“Katerina and I make a great team. We actually met as group fitness instructors at Goodlife, where we would frequently teach classes together. Even in that capacity, we really fed off of each other in very creative ways. I think Katerina and I have a really unique synergistic and creative chemistry.”

Lawrence Hill speaks at StFX on October 19

Get your shorts to Schwartz Auditorium for an evening with a great Canadian novelist

Photo: Lisa Sakulensky

Lawrence Hill will speak at Schwartz Auditorium Friday October 19th, 2018. Thanks to the StFX event sponsors Committee for Aboriginal and Black Student Success, African Descent Affairs and the Department of English, the Canadian novelist and professor of creative writing at Guelph University is scheduled for a first public speaking event in Antigonish this Fall.

Lawrence is the grandson and son of African-American soldiers who served with the American Army during WW I and WW II, respectively, and is working on a new novel about the African-American soldiers who helped build the Alaska Highway in northern BC and Yukon in 1942-43. He is a Member of the Order of Canada, and lives with his family in Hamilton, Ontario and in Woody Point, Newfoundland. 

Earlier this year, Lawrence was interviewed by Dr. John Hugh Gillis Regional High School senior students who had completed a novel study of The Book of Negroes. Lawrence’s critically-acclaimed novel won various awards including The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and two-time winner of CBC Radio’s Canada Reads. The Book of Negroes was made into a TV mini-series in 2015. 

Photo: Jenn Priddle

The questions crafted by senior students deconstruct some key elements of Lawrence’s literary devices like imagery. Senior student Timothy Matthews asked, “How did you come up with imagery for all the different settings?” 

Lawrence replied, “It’s really hard to write about a place, isn’t it? Let’s think about the ways you might write about a place and the kind of images you might use. It might be the image of a tree or nature. It might be the image of sound. What is Aminata hearing? What kind of language is being used around her? It might be the image of history, the social or historical setting of the place.” 

The evening with Lawrence at Schwartz is some four hundred kilometers away from where the novelist did his research in Shelburne, Nova Scotia when writing The Book of Negroes. Shelburne is an important place in Lawrence’s novel, especially since the book fictionalizes the 1784 riots that depicts a fragment of the Black Loyalist experience and resiliency. 

Senior Lauren Breen asked, “How much did you fictionalize the narrative when representing historical events like the Shelburne riots?”

Lawrence responded, “I gave myself every liberty to play with or exaggerate or contort minor details for the purposes of dramatic effect. I didn’t make what I would consider to be any major deviations from my understanding of the grand lines of the transatlantic slave trade.”

The full interview with Lawrence, published on May 31st, is available on The Xaverian Weekly’s website under the Arts and Community section.

Lawrence is author of novels Any Known Blood, Black berry: sweet juice and The Illegal and essays “Dear Sir, I Intend to Burn Your Book”, “Is Africa’s Pain Black America’s Burden?” and “Act of love: The life and death of Donna Mae Hill”. 

The later essay, published this year, is a heartfelt personal story that calls for Canada to reform its assisted suicide policies. 

Kalista Desmond and a drum group led by Morgan Gero will perform as opening acts for Lawrence on October 19th. Kalista has performed powerful spoken word poetry as an opening act at last year’s Youth Activism Conference headlining event with Desmond Cole. Morgan’s drum group also performed wonderfully as opening act for special guest Cole during his visit to campus last year. 

The title of Lawrence’s speaking event “Faction: Merging history and fiction in The Book of Negroes and The Illegal” hints that the author will dissect the intersection where fact meets fiction in his literature. Arrive at the October 19th event early to get the best seats in the Auditorium for an evening with special guest Lawrence Hill.

Alex Cyr Interview

Alumnus publishes debut novel documenting athletic experience at StFX

Alex was interviewed by Yanik Gallie on August 14, 2018. Runners of the Nish: A Season in the Sun, Rain, Hail and Hell is now available for purchase online through the FriesenPress or Amazon websites.

Photo: Heckbert's Photography and Gallery

Alumnus Alex Cyr published his debut novel Runners of the Nish: A Season in the Sun, Rain, Hail and Hell on July 25, 2018. Alex’s novel is an autobiographical reveal of life as a StFX athlete. 

Alex is a journalist who has written articles for U Sports and Canadian Running Magazine. Prior to publishing his novel, Alex published interviews with Olympic athletes Eric Gillis, Melissa Bishop, and Reid Coolsaet.  

***

YG: Can you share your experience of writing a first novel?

AC: There were a lot more steps to the experience than I thought. I started writing not thinking I was about to write a novel. The way it started is my coach Bernie Chisholm asked me if I wanted to chronicle a few things throughout the season like a race, workout, that kind of thing. As time went on, I filled in the gaps with things that happened. Not only races, workouts and hard outcomes, but also fun events that the team did and nights out. The process of writing my first novel really came in small, small, increments to the point where I didn’t know where I was going with it. It didn’t feel like a job until I got to the point when I looked at what I had and thought I can publish this. Because it was about something that I cared about and enjoyed, it was really a painless, and fun, process.

The publishing process took a lot more out of me than I thought. There is a lot that goes into taking a manuscript and making it into a book. Before that, I didn’t realize how many people would get to work with me. There is so much to be done. There’s editing, design, layout, copyright, getting your ISBN registered. All in all, I think it was a super cool experience and something that I might want to do again someday. It was eye-opening and rewarding.

YG: Knowing the book reflects your personal experience, is there content you were hesitant of including or redacted from the first edition?

AC: Yes. When I decided that I wanted to make a book out of this, I had to make a critical decision in that do I keep the events real and make it a non-fiction or do I embellish it and make a story out of this? Eventually my decision was to keep it real. I put the results as they were. I put the events as they were. Tell the stories as they were. When I made that decision, it made me have to draw a line somewhere else. How intrusive can I be in this endeavor? The people I write about are my teammates and also my best friends. When writing something about them, you want to portray them in a way that is very real, respectful and indicative of who they are. At the same time, you want to present them as characters and highlight little traits and funny characteristics that they have. Most of it, I tried to keep PG. There’s college life in there and stuff. For that part, I tried to gloss over some things that may not be appropriate for the book. I wanted to keep it friendly for the general population.

Photo: books.friesenpress.com

YG: Coach Bernie Chisholm is a treasured mentor of yours. How are you keeping the teachings of Bernie with you in P.E.I. and Ontario? 

AC: Something I think you’ll hear from many people who have been coached or taught by Bernie, because he was also a teacher, is Bernie became a bit more than a running coach. He became a life coach. 

I think Bernie instills good values in his runners and students. He’s a person with very consistent beliefs that he vocalizes. He’s also a guy who will tell you when you’re stepping out of line. He’s someone who implements a strong team culture and holds everyone to the same high standard. 

Personally, a lesson I am taking back with me from StFX, and from Bernie especially, is the ability to be mentally tough. I apply this to my running mostly, but it’s also a lesson that I apply to life. It’s the ability to push through things when they are not going my way. When you are doing a discipline like running, chances are you are going to replicate that behavior in other aspects of your life. With Bernie, he taught me to persevere and to be patient while working hard. That’s probably the number one quality that I have that I can attribute to Bernie’s coaching.

YG: You beat your personal best this May, well done. What goals are you pursuing with the University of Windsor Athletics Club?

AC: I still have one more year in my master’s at Windsor. After that, I don’t know where school, life and running will take me. There are things that I like about the environment in Windsor and if the next chapter of my life is there, my goals with running are to take it as far as I mentally and physically can. If I’m able to do that for the next few years, the goal is to be increasingly competitive on the national stage.

YG: What athletic tips would you give to a first-year student who is interested in running for StFX?

AC: I would encourage that student to go tryout and give it their shot. I think successful runners on the StFX team come from all walks of sport. You will have those who are superstars coming in and they don’t take as much time to walk up the ranks in the team and become intrinsic members. You will have those who have to wait a bit longer and stick it out. A tip that I would give is to be patient and trust the process. It wouldn’t be to work extremely hard for one week as it would be to work quite hard for 52 weeks and do it again, and again. 

Now, I’m one year removed from X and my best friends that I talk to everyday are fellow X-Men and X-Women, roommates and teammates. Cross-country and track-and-field are in essence sports for individuals. However, at X, there very much is that aspect of team that follows you wherever you go. Work consistently hard and results will come. 
 

Sarah Mian Interview

Staff Writer Addy Strickland and Co-Editor-In-Chief Yanik Gallie interviewed novelist Sarah Mian at Trellis Cafe on Tuesday 24th of July. Sarah is writing the script for a film adaptation of When The Saints. Sarah is also in the process of writing her second novel, The World in Awful Sleep.

Photographer: Shaun Simpson

Sarah Mian's debut novel, When the Saints, won the Jim Connors Book Award, the Margaret & John Savage First Book Award and was a finalist for the 2016 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. The book has just been optioned for a feature film and she is writing the screenplay.  

***

AS: You recently left your day job with the RCMP to become a full-time writer. What does a typical day of work look like for you now?

SM: I wish I could say that I had a routine that I stick to everyday. It’s more random than that, because I never know what project is inspiring me on a particular day. I am working simultaneously on my second novel, the screenplay for When The Saints, and a few other freelance projects. I try to get the tight deadlines out of the way first. Generally speaking, I write better at night, and now that I don’t have to get up everyday and go to a day job, I can write all night. I find that I think much more clearly in the evening, so I usually start writing on the heavy stuff after 7pm, go till about 2am or so, and then I wake when I wake. I try to get some exercise in there. I find that when I do something repetitive like running, walking or paddling, a different part of my consciousness can come forward and I’m better able to work out all of the plot points that weren’t coming to me when I was typing. 

AS: When The Saints is your first novel, correct?

SM: I wrote what I call a starter novel in my 20s, and I highly recommend it because it taught me how to be a better writer. When I read it back, not only is it a capsule of the way that I thought in my 20s – my gosh, I’d be mortified if it would ever be published because it’s so saccharine, idealistic, naïve --but when I read it back, it I can see that the writing gets better halfway through. All that consistent writing really paid off. The beginning is weak, and the ending is so strong, I can see the transformation of myself as a writer through that manuscript. It was absolutely worth doing. 

I teach writing classes now at the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and I always tell students, “never throw anything away.” If I had thrown that manuscript in the wood stove once I realized it wasn’t going to get published, I would have lost some really poetic descriptions of weather, landscapes and the ocean. I’m pulling those out and using them now in my second novel. It’s like a gift from my former self.

AS: What was the process of writing When The Saints like compared to your first novel?

SM: It started out as a flash fiction exercise I was doing with my writing group. I just kept adding to it, and it became a short story. Then, it was longer than a short story and I was still working on it. I had no intention to write a novel based on it – but the voice was so compelling and urgent. So, I wrote the whole thing from start to finish. Then, I went back to the beginning and made every line lead up to that ending. It felt like with this particular story, like it wanted to exist, or it already existed, and it chose me to take it down like a scribe which makes it sounds easier than it is. My second novel is not going down that path at all. It’s a completely different beast. I really value the fact that When The Saints came to me so fully formed.

AS: When the Saints took home the notable Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award and Margaret and John Savage First Book Award in 2016. As a debut author, how were these awards significant to you?

SM: Because those awards are judged by other writers in the Maritimes it felt really good to be recognized by my peers. It meant a lot to me while I was writing the book, and after I wrote the book, that people here embraced the book. It is such a Nova Scotia story. It was also shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and there were only three finalists - the other two well established with many novels under their belts and had been shortlisted or won the thing before, and me. And, this is a big event where it’s black tie and they sing the national anthem. That was kind of surreal for a kid who grew up in the hood in Dartmouth on social assistance.  

YG: What did you take away from working with the major publisher, HarperCollins?

SM: I had no idea there were so many layers to the editing process. There’s an editor, and there’s a copywriter, and then there’s a proof-reader. I was getting emails like, “hey, you have someone drinking a pineapple cooler, and the book takes place roughly around 1996. I don’t think those were invented yet, here’s a list of coolers that you can choose from.” So, I think I changed it to Calypso Berry. I was thrilled that somebody is actually like, “hey if they drive to the stop sign and turn left, wouldn’t they be going the wrong way?” They’re actually paying attention to my imaginary town. 

Then there’s a jacket designer. I sent them a photo of something that I had in mind, and then they had their artist create this cover. I’m so happy with what she did. When it was published, HarperCollins gave me a publicist. It felt like I had a whole team. Through it all, I had a say in everything. My contract stated that I am the top authority over my creation, and HarperCollins stuck by that.

YG: It sounds like you had a lot of creative liberty to make the book’s aesthetic and content exactly to your liking, which is awesome.

SM: Yes, but when it comes to the screenplay, it’s going to be completely opposite. Having had this experience, I really need to brace myself for the fact that I’ll have little control over the decisions. But hey, Hemingway famously said that if anyone ever options your book, you should drive to Hollywood, throw your manuscript over the fence, wait for the bag of money to come back and then drive away as fast as you can. It’s just a totally different medium and the book will be completely unrecognizable. It will be a good challenge for me to think through how we can lose the flashbacks or condense characters or eliminate scenes and still retain the information that those scenes conveyed. I’m excited about that, and not excited about that at the same time. Hopefully it will still retain its flavor, tone, and characters. If they find really good actors and nothing else – even if the budget is small and the set is tiny – I think they can pull it off. 

YG: The title When the Saints alludes to the familiar lyric, “when the saints go marching in.” An acute reader could anticipate the reuniting of the Saint family. Was this planned foreshadowing?

SM: I can’t recall at what stage of writing the novel the title came into play. The name Saint came from the RCMP. There had been a woman in a small town who had committed countless petty crimes with the last name Saint. I felt there was great irony. In other police files, there were whole families who were the shit disturbers in the town. So, I put those two together and formed the Saint family. It seemed to me the most logical title because it works in that your mind automatically connects with the rest of the sentence. As soon as you start reading or even read the back you’re going to see that they’re the kind of people who take no prisoners.

Photographer: Darren Schrader

YG: Many reviewers on Goodreads mention that they connect with Tabby on a deep level. How did this brave character come to be?

SM: She, I would say, is a composite of people I grew up with in a rough neighbourhood, in Dartmouth. There are elements of family members, elements of myself, but then some of her was always her own person who kept talking to me and I kept listening. I also feel quite an affinity for her. I don’t know how we met, but I’m glad we did.

YG: Literary critic Laura Eggertson from The Star praised your exceptionally-developed characters. What is your process for developing characters?

SM: I think with the Saint family, they are all very strong personalities, and their motivations are overt. They’re very outspoken, which kind of made them easier to know. Once they knew who they were, and what their motivations were, all of the plot lines evolved very organically out of themselves. They drove the whole thing, just being who they are. They are all sort of characters from my upbringing. They’re all mish-mashes of many different people. 

I spend a lot of time musing about characters when I’m not writing. Like if I’m watching a concert, I would try to put myself into that person’s body and mind, and think to myself how would Jackie react to this right now? Would he be patient? Would he be secretly really moved by it? I try to inhabit them outside of the writing process on occasion and sometimes that leads to some really cool insights. 

I take a minute to check in with them. Even if I’m just camping with friends, I kind of go off in my head, often, and my friends are used to that - where I’m thinking about the people who don’t exist while hanging out with people who do exist.

YG: I would argue that it’s a reason why your fictional world comes to life so much. 

SM: I think it’s important not to treat them like your Barbie dolls where you just tell them what to say. If they start to live and breathe on their own, they’ll resist that anyway. You tell them they want to go this way and they won’t. So, you trust them, and you follow them. You don’t steer them to places where they wouldn’t go. 

YG: You wrote the book in 1st person narration and present tense, which are interesting choices for style - why did you choose this style of narration?

SM: I think because it’s all filtered through Tabby and she’s just come back to this world, she’s the outsider now. Like us, the reader, she knows nothing. I wanted us to learn things as she learned them. I wanted to be inside her head, hearing only her thoughts and feelings the entire story, because it really is her journey. When the Saints is the story of Tabby's transformation from rejecting her family to accepting her family. 

AS: Would you ever consider writing a sequel, or will you leave the story as is?

SM: I never want to write anything twice. As much as I’ve been asked that a lot, I’m always trying to express myself in new ways. I kind of like the idea of people who read my second novel for the first time, never in a million years would they think that it’s the same writer. I want to lose myself in each new story so completely that I don’t have a consistent voice because the story is the voice. I wouldn’t want to revisit because I’m excited to see what I’m capable of next.

YG: In what ways do your Nova Scotian roots manifest themselves in your writing and vocabulary?

SM: There’s been a lot of mention in reviews about the language, because it is rather extreme, however that’s the way people talk here, especially in the world I grew in, and especially in Nova Scotia. When I tried to tone the language down in certain places, I couldn’t and still feel true to the characters. I let the characters express themselves according to their upbringing. There’s a certain poetry to it, I think it wasn’t peppering it with expletives for shock value, it was very controlled. It’s just the way that people talk around here. I eavesdrop on conversations all the time and make notes in my writing journal if a turn of phrase catches my ear.

YG: Did Jim Lahey inspire your use of the word “shitstorm”? 

SM: No, but after the book was published , John Dunsworth, the actor who played him, gave me his Dicshitnary. I said, “man, I wish I had this as one of my reference books when I was writing the book When The Saints.” The book has been described as Winter’s Bone meets Trailer Park Boys, which I’m not against. I’m hoping the movie version will be more like Winter’s Bone because while it is a funny novel, it’s also a very serious story and a very heartfelt story. I don’t want it to end up a parody. It’s important to me that this screenplay is not just entertainment. It has to show that these people aren’t to be taken lightly. This is a real true experience. This same cast of characters in another neighbourhood would probably flourish. We don’t always get to transcend our upbringing, not everybody does. When your soil has no nutrients, it’s hard to grow. I think that was the big question I was trying to answer when I wrote this book: Can we do better than our parents? I taught adults in a program designed for people who had been out of the workforce for a very long time or never had a job either because they had addiction issues, some had been prostitutes, some of them had been incarcerated. The historical damage within those bloodlines – they didn’t stand a chance. We all are presented with similar opportunities in a way but if you have no self-esteem left, you’re not going to pursue them. I wrote this book to honor that experience. 

YG: You mention Alistair MacLeod’s short stories as a source of inspiration in your interview with Shannon Webb-Campbell. How did Alistair influence your style of storytelling?

SM: I remember the curriculum in junior high, elementary, even high school, there were very few Nova Scotian writers. So, it was exciting to read one whose writing was so nuanced, had a tinge of darkness.  It was our experience reflected back. I was very moved by his work, I still am, and I am now a fan of his son’s, Alexander MacLeod, works. 

Alistair did a lot for the literary community in Nova Scotia. I feel like he’s one of the last of the old-school writers who wrote by hand. I like the idea of being on a windswept, rocky coast someday writing by candlelight, by hand. It’s hard to reconcile what I thought a novelist’s experience would be with the reality in 2018 where with social media, it’s hard to be mysterious. I always liked being mysterious. You always secretly want the author of our favorite book to be their character, then we’re disappointed when they’re not. It’s better to just keep the shade down. It was really hard for me when the book came out. My publicist at HarperCollins sent me a social media audit in which he had taken screenshots of everything I was not doing, or doing wrong, or could do better. It was like, you should have a Facebook page, and you should have a website, look these people are commenting on Goodreads so you should talk to them. I didn’t want to do it, and I still don’t want to do any of that. I joined Twitter for five minutes and was like, “I can’t, I’m out.” I’m a luddite who listens to only vinyl records and just got a cellphone at forty. I don’t like the idea of being that connected, but because the book industry is not as lucrative as it once was, there’s an expectation that you fulfil some of the marketing requirements yourself. I do have an author Facebook page, but I don’t think I’ve updated it in a year. I do have a website, and I’ll say, “post to come!” 

I do love reading to people, but I don’t love talking about myself as a writer. I’ve done acting and I perform music sometimes, and that’s different because I’m being somebody else when I do that. When I’m me, at my most authentic self as a writer, I feel so naked. That’s been a learning curve about how to get used to the spotlight on me personally and not me as a character. I’ve had other writers recommend that I create Sarah the writer as a character but that feels wrong because I don’t want to separate myself from my writing life in that way. 

AS: Are there any other books or authors that are always on your reading list, or that you’ve enjoyed recently?

SM: I don’t know that I have authors that I revisit again and again, because I’m always trying to learn from new voices. I’ve been reading a lot of ghost stories because my new novel is a bit of a scary suspense story, and I’m trying to deconstruct what works and what doesn’t. Everything from the classics like The Haunting of Hill House or Edgar Allan Poe. I’m reading Elizabeth de Miriaffi’s Hysteria right now. A lot of what I read in fiction is in service to my own fiction, depending on what it is I’m trying to get better at myself. For pure love of reading, I love short stories. I appreciate that art-form and would love to get to the point where people would want to read my short stories, which usually happens after you’ve developed a following. I just read a collection called I am, I am, I am by a writer named Maggie O’Farrell, an Irish writer, and each of the stories details a time she almost died. Within those stories, she kind of gives us a whole narrative of their life and I thought they were perfect. 

AS: You’re working on a new book, The World in Awful Sleep. Can you tell us about where you’re hoping to go with this new project?

SM: The first draft of this book is not coming as easily as When the Saints did. It’s a very complex story with characters who don’t reveal themselves easily. It’s like starting over and learning from scratch how to be a writer. I tried to write it the same way as I did with When the Saints from beginning to end and it would not comply so I’m building it very slowly from the ground up.  It’s a lot more fleshed out, but slower moving. I’m hoping to have a full first draft ready to show my editor by next spring. 

AS: Is there any advice you would give to an aspiring writer who wants to write a novel?

SM: There is so much advice that I wish someone had told me fifteen years ago. I’ll narrow it down to my top 5. Number one: Start a writing group. That feedback is invaluable, and that support system is invaluable. It’s a really lonely and difficult job. Your family or partner, they don’t always necessarily understand that part of you, so to connect with other people who do, and people that you trust and give you knowledge and feedback, you start to become this family in which success for one of you is a success for all of you.

We used to workshop each other’s work. If it were your turn you would email or send us what they’re working on in advance. We all will have read it and have feedback prepared and would discuss it at length. We’d have a short little exercise at the start and then we just drink and gossip. It’s now at the point where we’ll meet up on a long weekend and go to a cabin and spend three days together. It’s motivating because if you know you’re going to meet up with your writing group, you need something to show. It gives you a deadline. So, start a writing group, or join an existing writing group. Sometimes you don’t gel, you have to find the right people, but I feel like when it’s fate, the wrong people will fall away and the ones who are supposed to be there will find you. Number two: Keep learning. I still take writing workshops. I read books about writing all the time. I tap other writers for advice. I would never presume to think that I know anything about writing. Having written one novel, I discovered that all of the techniques I used in the first one are not working in the second one. It’s like I’m starting from scratch. I’ve been talking to a lot of writers about second novel syndrome. Number three: Keep a journal and never throw anything away. You may use it later. It’s really hard to cut passages from your writing that are so eloquent, or a really precise thought that you had in your head, and you’re proud to have put on paper, but if it doesn’t move the story forward, it has to go. To temper that loss, put it in a safe place and keep it., I have used many things that I have thrown away. Number four: Keep your rejection letters. Send things out all the time. Keep a spreadsheet of where you sent them, and when you get feedback write down what it was. Was it a personal note? Was it a form letter? Write the dates down and send it everywhere often. It’s so hard not to get lost in the shuffle. Send your work everywhere, often, and keep your rejection letters to tell the story of how you made it. I read that in Stephen King’s On Writing autobiography and I started doing that. Now when I go talk to kids who want to be writers in schools, I bring this giant binder and say, “this is what it takes to be a writer.” I never doubted that I would become a novelist. I knew I would and I knew I would because I knew I would never give up. That’s the only difference between a non-successful writer and a successful writer. Number five: Get an agent. It’s almost as hard to get an agent as it is to get a publisher, but it’s well worth it. I highly recommend finding out what the agencies are in Canada, find out who the agents are and which writers they represent. Find one that you think would be a good fit for you. When you have something to show them, write them a letter about why you’d be a good match. Include why you’ve written this book, why only you could write this book, and why it has to be written now in your letter. Try to give them a sense of your writing voice so they’re intrigued enough to want to read more. Don’t send them a book in the mail. Ask them if they would be interested; make them interested. The agents have all their editors in their pockets that they can call, and then that agent is almost guaranteed to read it as opposed to you mailing it to Penguin or Random House where it sits in a slush pile for who knows how long. 

What happened with me is that I sort of blindly applied for my first grant to go and I got it and went to the Writing Studio at the Banff Centre for the Arts. One of the writing mentors I was paired with loved my book so much, she offered to work together long distance after the program had ended - which is rare, and so generous. After I had finished the next draft, she gave me a little more feedback and said, “when you’re done with those few things, send it to my agent.” The agent loved it and signed me right away, and a month later, I had a book deal with HarperCollins. It felt like a complete fairy-tale and a fluke, except I had thirty-year apprenticeship of writing behind that. Since I was a little kid I’ve been honing, and honing, and honing my craft. I would never have wanted to be published anything that I didn’t feel was necessary to other people.I want what I write to be important so I must dedicate my life to mastering my craft. Taking this step and quitting my day job to do this even more deliberately, I feel that I will get better and that I will learn more.