Notes from Borderland in Grain Magazine

Grain’s Winter 2012 issue, which hits newsstands this week, features my personal essay “Notes from Borderland.” In this piece, I examine Borderline Personality Disorder as a diagnostic label, imitating the layout of the DSM in order to analyze the diagnosis one criterion at a time. Combining personal narrative and feminist critique, this essay takes a skeptical approach to what is increasingly being called “a female malady of late modern society.”

Sigal Samuel

While you’re checking out “Notes from Borderland,” be sure to flip to “How festive the ambulance,” a beautiful poem by my fellow UBC MFA Kim Fu. In the same issue, you will also find the winning poems and stories from the 2011 Short Grain Writing Contest. Lots of great stuff!

Vancouver Gentrification in This Magazine

Sigal SamuelMy article on the new condo development in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside appears in the current issue of This Magazine–check it out! Gentrification is a challenging topic to write about, and I hope I was able to do it justice. Many thanks to columns editor Andrea Bennett for her keen editorial eye. Also in the March-April issue is Kim Fu’s take on the centrist claims of the new Coalition Avenir Quebec–definitely worth a read!

thrilLITERATE

Last weekend’s thrilLITERATE reading was a great success–and so much fun! I enjoyed the talented readers, the generous audience, and Rhizome Cafe’s amazing chocolate orange cake. Most importantly, the event raised $1300 for the WISH Learning and Literacy Program in the Downtown Eastside. Thanks to Amber Dawn for hosting such a vibrant reading series for the past 5 years, and for inviting me to be part of it!

Sigal Samuel

Upcoming Readings

Sigal SamuelHey, Vancouverites! I’ve got two upcoming readings this month, and I’d love to see you at both.

On February 9 at 7 pm, I’ll be reading at Locution. Fellow readers include Jordan Hall, Laurie Ann Melnychuk, and Susin Nielsen. The event takes place at Project Space (222 E Georgia Street), and admission is free.

On February 25 at 7:30 pm, I’ll be reading at the last ever thrilLITERATE! In case you’re new to it, the thrilLITERATE Reading Series has showcased some of Vancouver’s most acclaimed queer and allied authors to raise funds for the women’s literacy program at WISH, a drop-in centre for female survival sex workers in the Downtown Eastside. After nearly five years, organizer and host Amber Dawn is saddened but ready to retire this community literary event, but not without a final farewell!

The event takes place at Rhizome Café (317 E Broadway). Sliding Scale $5 – $20. 100% of the door goes to the WISH Learning and Literacy Program. The readings will span two evenings.

Friday February 24 readers include: Elizabeth Bachinsky, Afuwa Granger, Shana Myara, Donna Dykeman, Aaron Chan, Cathleen With, Antonette Rea and Tony Correia.

Saturday February 25 readers include: Tash Wolfe, Larissa Lai, Terra Poirier, Sonnet L’Abbe, Crystal Sikma, Sigal Samuel, Michael V. Smith and Amber Dawn.

Sigal Samuel

Humanities 101 in The Walrus

Hey there, magazine lovers. I thought you might be interested to know that my article on Humanities 101, a free liberal arts program for residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, appears in the current issue of The Walrus!

Sigal SamuelTwo nights a week, Humanities 101  attracts Downtown Eastside residents–many live in insecure housing; some are homeless–to the UBC campus to study philosophy, art, history, politics, law, literature, gender studies, writing, and more. Since its inception in 1998, Humanities 101 has also inspired 10 sister programs from Victoria to Halifax. The movement is gaining momentum nationwide, and I suspect we’ll be hearing lots more about it in the years to come.

So get yourself a copy of The Walrus, enjoy the article on Humanities 101, and–when you’re done–flip a few more pages and feast your eyes on the latest poetry by (swoon) Leonard Cohen!

Review of Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme

Sigal SamuelMy review of Persistence (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011), an anthology about butch and femme identities, is up on PRISM international‘s website! You can check it out here.

Spoiler: I think this anthology is totally excellent.

How to Edit a Novel

I owe the title of this post to Saleema Nawaz, a Montreal author whose blog I started reading last year; check out her post on novel-editing here. Now that I’ve completed a draft of my own novel, I thought I’d draw up my own list of steps. There are ten—because archetypal numbers make me happy—starting with:

Sigal Samuel

Photo by URBAN ARTefakte

1. Adopt the Taoist attitude. Put the draft in a drawer and, for at least a month, do nothing, nada, zilch.

2. Use that time to exercise other parts of your writerly brain—do some freelance journalism, write a book review—and to convince your friends that, despite the anti-social tendencies you’ve been exhibiting for the past few months, you do in fact still like them.

3. If you don’t like to read other writers’ work while you’re trying to hammer out your own, this is also a good time to make a dent in that “to read” pile you’ve got teetering on your night table. It might also be an appropriate time to check out Making a Good Script Great, Linda Seger’s guide to re-writing.

4. In the meantime, beg/wheedle/charm/cajole other writers—and careful readers, readers whom you trust—until they agree to edit your draft. (If you’re brave and/or crazy, like this writer duo, you can foist it on your significant other, too. Or maybe you’ve already creepily permeated each other’s psyches, like this couple, making foisting unnecessary.)

5. Before you read your editors’ notes, think about all the problems you yourself can spot in the existing draft. Think about all the little things that make you squirm. All the little things that don’t feel quite right. You will not fall prey to Golden Prose Syndrome. You will change these things.

6. Read the notes.

7. Compare them with your own gut feelings. Throw them up against the wall of your own intuition, and see what sticks. Contemplate problems and possible solutions.

8. Pull out the old beat sheet—the plot outline you drew up when you first sat down to write that initial draft. In all likelihood, your editors will have pointed out that it’s got some problems you hadn’t noticed before. Maybe some beats are in the wrong order. Maybe some beats are in the wrong book altogether. Adjust the sheet accordingly.

9. Take a nice big gulp of whatever it is that makes you feel invincible—Earl Grey tea, whiskey, unicorn blood—and remember why you wanted to write this thing in the first place. Shine your shoes for the Fat Lady.

10. Now do your work.