We’re visiting authors in their hometowns and learning about some of their favourite spots all October long.
Find more Homegrown picks here.
Unresponsive by Kelly Madden (Caitlin Press)
Courtenay, BC
All Lit Up: What’s a favourite spot to visit in your hometown?
Kelly Madden: One of my favourite spots in town is Artful : The Gallery. It is a place that is alive with colour and possibility. The beautiful space hosts art shows, book launches, featured poet evenings, open‑mike nights, songwriting circles, and countless moments of shared creativity. The space is warm, inspiring, and held together by the vision of registered counsellor and multi‑media artist Kristina Campbell, who has cultivated a community that keeps expanding.
Click here to learn more about Unresponsive.
Wild Dogs and Fat Babies by Tamara Bond (At Bay Press)
Victoria, BC
All Lit Up: What’s a favourite spot to visit in your hometown?
Tamara Bond: A walking route is a necessity. Until our recent move, Smith’s Hill Reservoir was my favourite place to walk around its four sides, write notes on my phone, and ruminate. It is the setting for the bird story at the end of Wild Dogs and Fat Babies. The reservoir is no longer used for the city’s drinking water, it is the habitat for many birds—Canada Geese and different species of Ducks swim there. One winter, a Common Pochard was spotted and many birders came with their cameras and binoculars to watch it swimming around with all the local Ducks. It was far from home, but seemed very content. My favourite is when the Swallows come out at dusk in great numbers and swoop and fly around eating bugs. Once an Owl (not sure what kind) sat on the barbed wire fence at night, and I almost walked right by it without noticing. It sat still watching me. Another time, the biggest bird I have ever seen, perhaps a young Eagle, flew very close to the ground the length of one side of the reservoir and then up and away. On a hot summer’s day, I watched a Hawk fly down to the water, submerge its lower body with its wings spread wide, then fly right out again. I think it was trying to cool off. At the right time of day, there is no one else walking or running on the path around the reservoir, and one can get a lot of good thinking done, going round and round. I am currently trying to find the perfect loop in my new neighbourhood. It is close to the ocean and the seagulls are wonderfully noisy.
Click here to learn more about Wild Dogs and Fat Babies.
Off the Mark by Linda Sanche (Signature Editions)
Calgary, AB
All Lit Up: What do you love about the arts and culture community where you live?
Linda Sanche: I love that Calgary has a thriving arts and culture community. We have plenty of independent bookstores that support local authors—Owl’s Nest, Pages, Nocturne, and Shelf Life books, to name a few. We have a great theatre scene, including my favourite, Vertigo Theatre, which specializes in mystery, suspense and thriller plays. We also have cSPACE in Marda Loop, an arts-centred building, formerly a historic sandstone school, that houses artist studios, craft galleries, and the place that is dear to my heart, the Alexandra Writers’ Centre, where I met a wonderful community of writers/friends.
Click here to learn more about Off the Mark.
Sirens by Joe Kertes (Stonehewer Books)
Toronto, ON
All Lit Up: What’s a favourite spot to visit where you live?
Joe Kertes: The old and brilliant scoliotic tree stands in a park near my home in North Toronto. I used to take our kids to this park regularly, and they wanted to sit on its amazing horizontal branch. I often visit this tree still, which has a bench in front of it, and it makes me think about the fiction that I’m writing. It reminds me both of my youth and about impending old age. It seems bent and knowing, as it always has, when this branch began to grow out, taking its own path, as if it were determined in a way the trunk could not understand, yet inevitably it still remains attached to home.
The second photo is what is left of the Palace of Apollo on the island of Naxos, Greece. The palace was built in 530 B.C. and the gate is all that remains. My new novel, called Sirens, is set in wartime Greece and stumbles upon some of the big truths of Western thinking and civilization: the mythology that inspired people to take action—or not—the religions that pulled people to them and sometimes overwhelmed them. Apollo’s Gate, standing as the only reminder of that great palace and of a great time, the founding of democracy, stands both as inspiration and warning.
Click here to learn more about Sirens.
The Roughling by Alex Costa (Linda Leith Publishing)
Montreal, QC
All Lit Up: What’s a favourite spot to visit in your hometown?
Alex Costa: Montreal is a marvelous city. We have legendary restaurants, a flourishing arts scene, and the Habs. But what I missed most when I left my hometown of Toronto, apart from the family I grew up with and my oldest friends, were the ravines. Toronto is blessed with an urban forest unique in the world. Its wooded valleys, a mark left by ancient glaciers, are an unexpected and remarkable feature in such a large, busy city. A vast wilderness of winding rivers, creeks and forests that reach through the bustling metropolis, they had always been a nearby oasis when I was growing up.
Deer, coyotes, foxes and the familiar raccoon have all been spotted in the ravines. As a child, before the advent of ubiquitous screens to steal once-familiar moments of boredom and fancy, I would imagine the stories of these creatures. Where would they go? What adventures could they look forward to once they disappeared from my view? In the middle of all that city, there exists another world. A wild world of fantasy, mystery and wonder. I try to visit every time I go back.
Click here to learn more about The Roughling.
When I Come Back We Will Talk by Leonard Diepeveen
(Freehand Books)
Halifax, NS
All Lit Up: What’s a favourite spot to visit in your hometown?
Leonard Diepeveen: My favourite spot in Halifax is the Central Library, a gorgeous building whose design immediately pleases you when you enter and look up and around. It is a noisy place. The marginally housed and people with substance abuse issues hang out on the main floor, and sometimes they cause a kerfuffle. Library staff regularly have coffee and treats, and people gather around for that. Headed to the second floor and their group activities, toddlers add a different kind of noise, as do the twelve-year-old boys chatting and playing video games on the bank of computers on the third floor. The library has become a community center, pointing to an ideal of social harmony.
Of course, it is still a “library—its collection is easy to use and is connected to other libraries. You want a particular book? The staff can get it for you. There are peaceful places to read, and a sunny spot on the top floor with high windows overlooking the city and big armchairs that invite you to slouch and read for an hour or so. I regularly write in the local history room, a floor down. It’s a different kind of community space—a separate room with signs that designate it as a “Quieter Space.” If there ever was a place in the library where traditional shushing still makes sense, it would be here. But there is no need, people understand the codes of behaviour—the man who mutters as he works eventually catches himself, startled, as does the person who sometimes hums along to Blue Rodeo playing on her earbuds. Everything feels right, most days.
Click here to learn more about When I Come Back We Will Talk.
* * *
Join us here every Thursday from now until October 29 for more Homegrown reads! Books can be purchased on All Lit Up, or from your local indie bookstore (try our Shop Local button located on every book listing to find copies at your local indie).
