A couple of weeks back, while exploring the upper reaches of the Herman B. Wells Library here at IU, I came came across this rather thick book entitled The Notebooks: Interviews and New Fiction from Contemporary Writers. It was in the Canadian Lit section and being just one of those sidenotes to my searches for fiction set in urban Canada, I grabbed it. This book, edited by Michelle Berry and Natalee Caple, has ended being one of the those absolutely invaluable reads for me.
The title gives away most of what this book does. Each section starts with a reproduction of the notebook of one of these Canadian writers and then drops us into a draft of a work in progress by the given writer. What then follows are interviews with the artists about craft and typically the state of the art in Canada. Taken as a whole, each artist section are fantastic individual explorations of the creative process. While each writer is unique and their take on both the craft and the industry are informative and entertaining.
What writers are in this particular collection? Yann Martel (Life of Pi) is clearly the one name that many would recognize. But you also have Hal Niedzviecki of Broken Pencil fame (If you haven't head about it, check it out. They have really cool Writer's Deathmatch. They're based out of Toronto), and Andrew Pyper (Lost Girls). I wouldn't just recommend the book for those that are familiar with the names listed above. It's just worth it to find some new writers and see what they are doing right. It is simply nice to see the state of the craft is alive and well in the Great White North. And while this book is a little on the older side (2002), it really does hold something quite useful for the writer.
The edition I've been looking at was put out by Anchor Canada (Random House Affliate I believe), and it should be available on Amazon.com or Chapters.ca.
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