Format: Recorded
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Puzzles, Prisms, Tributaries, Tapestries: Unconventional Story Shapes and What They Offer
Leona Theis and Susan Olding both find inspiration in unconventional story shapes. Theis’s latest novel, If Sylvie Had Nine Lives, follows its protagonist on nine possible life trajectories instead of the more typical single path. Olding’s Big Reader includes personal essays structured as braided narratives, collage, lyric sequences, and more. Listen in on an intimate conversation between these writers about their process, hear them read from their new work, and discover the joys and challenges of writing — and reading—narratives that veer from the straight and narrow.
Bios:
Leona Theis is a Canadian author whose first book, Sightlines, linked short stories that form a portrait of a town, won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Excerpts from her novel The Art of Salvage, a story about messing up and finding hope, were shortlisted for novella awards on both the east and west coasts of Canada. Her personal essays have been published in literary magazines in Canada and the United States, won creative nonfiction awards from the CBC and Prairie Fire Magazine, and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including The Journey Prize Stories, and American Short Fiction, where her work won the story prize. Her most recent book is the novel-in-stories If Sylvie Had Nine Lives (freehand books, 2020). She divides her time between Saskatoon and a cabin in Saskatchewan’s boreal forest. She’s an avid Nordic skier, kayaker and cyclist. Her current dream is to do an extended walking tour somewhere on the Prairies.
Susan Olding is the author of Big Reader: Essays, and Pathologies: A Life in Essays, selected by 49th Shelf and Amazon.ca as one of 100 Canadian books to read in a lifetime. Her essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared widely in literary journals and magazines throughout Canada and the U.S., and have won a National Magazine Award, the Edna Staebler Prize for the Personal Essay, and other honours. She lives with her family in the traditional territories of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ nations, in Victoria, British Columbia.