Since my recent interview with the fabulous Michelle Barker was posted, I’ve had a few people asking about the musical playlists associated with Clearwater, and the characters that inhabit that world. The music played and listened to by Claire, Jeff, and Daniel was a big part of earlier drafts of the book, but many of the references were cut during the editing phase.

I thought I would share a few tunes that I think reflect the people and events of the story, whether through lyrics or music that is mentioned in the book. The music I listened to while writing and editing included these songs, as well as many more from every musical genre and era.

Greg Drummond, Heaven or Hell

This is a recent song I first heard at Fernie’s Wapiti Music Fest. There’s something about Drummond’s description of the north that I like. Also, this: “We can’t deny the beauty that lies within this land/could change everything.” And, “Many miles we have come just to see where the line would break.”

Melissa McClelland, Brake (the version without Sarah MacLachlan is much better.)

This one is the end credits song. “…time won’t wait for us/Our past is all used up/The gutter fills and sinks away.”

Sweet Talk Radio, Fly Away

“We roll the windows down/To feel the air and hear the sound/As our wings leave the ground”

Elton John, Levon

A song that came up on my iPod mix while running, it made its way into one of the scenes I found most difficult to write.

The Cure, Boys Don’t Cry

The Cure is mentioned, briefly, in the second half of the book, when Jeff says that the local radio station was always ten years behind. This is a fact.

DeBussy, Clair de Lune

The song Daniel (a pianist) says is Claire’s favourite, the one she likes to hear him play – it’s not…

…this is:

Beethoven, Pathétique pt II

And to wrap up this melancholy mix:

The Payolas, Where is This Love

Working on my new novel has been a different and somewhat challenging experience. Due to my various running ailments (i.e. age), I no longer spend hours a week just listening to music. I’ve come to realize how integral music is to the process of getting to know my characters, and how much I miss getting lost in song.

My grandfather flying my kite while I steal the spotlight.

My grandfather passed away on May 6, 2013, three days before my birthday. I’ve been thinking of him more than usual, perhaps because he won’t be around for the release of my novel. He asked about it every time we spoke, always shocked that it was “taking so damn long!”

There is so much to say about this great man, and I will, one day, write about him. It’s hard, though, and while I know the hard stuff is the good stuff, I know myself well enough to know that it’s going to take time.

So instead, this:

At the end of April, I attended the Calgary launch for Jessica Kluthe’s book Rosina, the Midwife. It was a great evening and I came away from it with a great hug, a beautiful book and a new friend.

Two nights after hearing Jessica read, I spoke to my grandpa, who’d just been released from the hospital, and would shortly be re-admitted. I’d never heard him labour for breath as he did – always so strong, he sounded diminished. I knew I had to see him.

So I booked a flight, and headed to the airport. In my carry-on, was Rosina, the Midwife. I started reading on the plane, and will forever be grateful that this is the book I carried with me, both physically and emotionally, over the next few weeks.

Rosina, the Midwife possesses a lyrical structure and lush writing – the story rolling out through the present and the past, with Jessica telling her own story as well as that of her great-grandmother. Secrets are kept and shared, and love and loyalty shine through even the darkest and saddest moments of the book.

Over the next two weeks, I made more trips home to Regina. In the dim light from the console above my head, I read. As my own grandfather’s health faded, Jessica’s grandfather became more prominent in the book, travelling with Jessica to Italy, where he was born, to find the roots of her great-grandmother, of her family.

Rosina was steadfast – she stayed in Italy, watching all her children leave her for new lives in North America.  My grandpa, too, was a rock – the guy who didn’t say much, but was a constant presence at the end of the dinner table, or on the couch in his jacket. “It’s cold in this damn shack!” was a common refrain, whether he was watching the Rider game at my mom’s or hockey at my aunt’s.

Jessica’s conversations with her grandparents, and her trip with her grandfather and the connections to the past really drove home how tenuous the ties are that hold us to this earth. And yet, how strong are the bonds that hold us together.

Rosina, the woman, was re-created through Jessica’s amassing of evidence and anecdotes, just as Rosina, the Midwife, the book itself, was created. Some tales were told by family, some by documents. Jessica had to put them together, to build as complete a picture as she could, even when the official documentation seemed wrong. As a reader, it was a beautiful process to bear witness to; the book is a testament to the worthiness of story.

And in the end, we are left with only stories – stories that are told to keep the memory of our loved ones alive, stories that contort and transform with every telling, until we create our own truth. Sitting with my grandfather, watching family come and go, I realized that we all have our own truth where he is concerned. But it’s together that our stories will remind us of, and ultimately re-create, the man he was. Yet none of us knows the whole story. His whole story. And none of us ever will.

I was reminded of this last night when I spoke to my grandma – who’d known my grandpa since she was fifteen.

“Your grandpa used to sing all the time,” she said, her voice strained. “In the garden, or when he was making supper. Doing dishes.” She was quiet for a bit. “I didn’t even know half of those songs. I wonder where he learned them.”

Maybe Grandpa’s mother taught him the songs on Sunday mornings. Maybe he learned them while harvesting crops for farmers as a young man, or working in his uncle’s mill. Maybe he learned them from a traveling musician at the hotel in Fort Qu’Appelle. Maybe he heard them on the radio in the eighteen wheeler he drove for years.

We’ll never know.

But there is a story there. And like Jessica did with Rosina, the Midwife, we just need to tell it.

(The song my grandma remembers my grandpa singing.)

This past week I was spotlighted on Susan Toy’s blog Island Editions along with four amazing authors. Click here to check out the post, along with information on Island Shorts, an imprint that will be publishing poetry as well as short stories and non-fiction.

In the spirit of blogging it forward, I thought I would choose five writers that I am excited about. Some I have met and worked with, others I admire from afar, but all of them are talented and worth checking out.

Diana Davidson
Diana Davidson is an Edmonton writer whose first novel, Pilgrimage is being released by Brindle and Glass in a matter of days. Pilgrimage is an ambitious, beautifully-written novel. It opens in 1891, at Lac St. Anne, in a time when colonial, religious and indigenous tensions run high.
I first read Diana’s work when her essay “Ahead of the Ice” won the Jon Whyte Memorial Essay prize and was published in Alberta Views. Her short story, “A Good Night,” has just been published at Little Fiction. You can find more information on Diana at her website, here.

Anne Lazurko
Anne Lazurko is a fellow Coteau author whose book Dollybird really brought out my Saskatchewan pride. Anne’s descriptions of the prairie, the sunsets that paint the land, and the people who live there made me homesick for the province where I was born. Dollybird is a well-researched novel about a part of Saskatchewan history that gets very little attention – the women who stood behind those men that broke through the tough soil to forge a new life in a sometimes inhospitable land. Anne’s blog can be found here.

Sonal Champsee
Sonal Champsee is an extraordinary short story scribe (and playwright, and poet) from Toronto. I had the privilege to read an early draft of Sonal’s short story “The Wedding,” a tale about an argument that takes place via text in the midst of the swirling colours, sounds and smells of a traditional Indian celebration of marriage. “The Wedding” appears in the much-anticipated anthology Friend. Follow. Text. alongside many CanLit luminaries, including Steven Heighton. Sonal has also been chosen to assistant teach Sarah Selecky’s Story Intensive master class with Margaret Atwood. More information about Sonal’s forthcoming work can be found at her blog, here.

Lauren Carter
I first heard of Lauren Carter when I read her piece on CBC’s Hyperlocal contest earlier this year, though she’s been on the CanLit scene much longer than that. I noticed she had posted from the town where my novel is set (The Pas, MB), so I did what anyone would do. I creeped her blog, then followed her on Twitter. She was recently named to the CBC Writes Poetry Contest longlist. Her celebrated collection of poems is called Lichen Bright. She is also a past Journey Prize nominee. Lauren’s novel Swarm is described at Brindle and Glass’s website as a story about “persevering in a time of shrinking options, and coming to terms with regrettable choices.” It’s out this fall as well. You can follow Lauren on her blog, here.

Danny Goodman
And finally – This summer I followed a Twitter link to an author on FoundPress via an endorsement from Joseph Boyden. Danny Goodman blew me away with his story “Somehow There Was More Here.” This of course led me down the interweb rabbit hole of finding more of this fabulous writer’s work. There is a lot to be found. I’m particularly fascinated by the links between many of his stories and their characters. I do the same thing, and reading Danny Goodman’s work has put my mind at ease when it comes to working (and re-working) with established characters and settings. He knows his characters inside and out, and inspires me to do the same. His language is crisp and sharp, his characters are broken and beautiful and real. And yeah – New York City. You can’t go wrong. Danny is also the editor of FWRICTION:REVIEW, a literary journal.
You can connect with Danny here.