All posts by Heather Haley

Sage sisters, memories (of Sage Hill Writing Experience)

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Before they’re gone forever, and though I’m barely scratching the surface, here are a few other robust memories from my ten-day tenure at Sage Hill Writing Experience.

July 19, 2010

I can’t believe I’m here! I couldn’t sleep the last few nights, in anticipation but I made it after an uneventful flight, the best kind. I’ve been exploring, getting my bearings, settling in.

“Be fearless, be in the moment, remember why you’re there, be open to the path ahead. Open yourself up like the big Saskatchewan sky then strike like lightning.” My pal Sean Cranbury of Books On The Radio‘s words on getting the most out of this retreat, good advice I shall endeavor to use.

July 21, 2010

I met my instructor, award winning author Terry Jordan. Nice guy, adorable 9-year old daughter C in tow. What is she going to do? I’d be bored here if I was a kid. Terry’s a musician. Damn! I would have brought my bundle of busking songs with me if I’d known. I should always assume there will be hootenannies and opportunities to sing at these things. I’ve been reading Terry’s novel, Beneath That Starry Place, mightily impressed with his well-drawn characters and landscapes. He possesses a powerful ability to create ambiance, often sinister. I will have to get him to sign it for me. Terry’s a playwright too. I would like to talk to him about that. I’m seriously considering writing and producing a Continue reading →

Omnivorous Creatures

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He’s back. Our resident Bowen Island bear has returned to our yard to play the Seed Game. Everybody around here is mad for sunflower seeds; squirrels, deer, dogs, bears, humans. And then there’s the vermin, the rats and mice. I don’t know how the Junkos, Towhees, Chickadees and Finches will ever get theirs.

As previously mentioned, I have a thing for birds, hence the bird feeder. It’s rather an indulgence, though apparently said hobby helps songbirds to survive and it gives me immense pleasure. The deer are the worst. My Staffie SamIAm and I spent 20 minutes chasing off one very persistent doe this morning. She hides behind the trampoline between raids and when she emerges, sets the dogs off barking maniacally until I am forced to run downstairs to shush them. Well, I always say my life is a zoo. Unfortunately for the bear, he is becoming habituated to humans. There is no wilderness on this island; he has nowhere to roam without encountering people and their garbage. And bird feeders. So, I won’t put out any more bird seed until he’s been trapped and removed by the Conservation Officer. At least I hope that’s his fate, and that he doesn’t get shot.

Sex At Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. Just read it. I’ve long maintained that monogamy isn’t Continue reading →

Holding onto summer . . .

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. . . and not very successfully for it’s still flying by. Just walked the hounds, trying to get my energy up. I feel like I ran a marathon, muscles sore, achy. My bitch Brinda is eating dirt as I drain the hot tub, neighbourhood junkos and towhees using the run-off as a birdbath. Flighty, ring-necked pigeons fight over the sunflower seeds, their cries reminiscent of elephant calls. There was a haze over the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley from the forest fire smoke drifting down from the Interior, but it’s cleared up. We didn’t notice it much over here, another perk of island life.

I’m working it, working on the novel. Post Sage-Hill, feeling like I’ve been back a long time but actually still struggling to re-enter. Such a rarefied atmosphere and I didn’t realize it there and then. Slowly, I am starting to get some serious work done, some editing accomplished. I’ve felt ambiguous about the title, The Town Slut’s Daughter. I realize it makes the book a hard sell and several people have asked if I’m married to it. I keep coming to the same conclusion, Continue reading →

“The Siren of Howe Sound” guest speaker @ the Shebeen Club

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I’m blushing. . . . Hope to see you there.  🙂

The announcement-invitation from Raincoaster Media:

“Who: The Shebeen Club and the Siren of Howe Sound, Heather Haley
What: A night of multimedia delights celebrating the recent publication of Three Blocks West of Wonderland. Go here for more information on the Shebeen Club.
When: Monday, August 16, from 7pm-9pm
Where: The Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, 212 Carrall Street

Join us as we celebrate the release of Heather Haley’s latest book of poetry, Three Blocks West of Wonderland. Heather is both the digital and actual troubadour of the West Coast, from Bowen Island to Venice Beach, and for the first time she’ll be bringing her multimedia performance experience to the Shebeen Club. There will be poetry. There will be prose. There will be beauty. There may be song. And there WILL be videopoems, a dynamic genre that seems to have sprung fully formed from the forehead of the Siren of Howe Sound herself.

We’re very proud to help celebrate a pivotal local literatus’s latest launch! And that’s my allotment of “L’s” for the week right there. As always, $20 buys you dinner and a drink and some of the finest literary company this city has to offer. Click here to RSVP on Facebook.

Altar-ed State

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Reeling after returning yesterday from the Sage Hill Writing Experience. I am now officially an experient! And honoured to be so. Man, I swear I’m a changed woman, all charged up and ready to complete the final draft of my novel. I think I must still be running on the adrenalin I felt every day while at St. Michael’s monastery-retreat. It did get quiet now and then but each time I left my room, I encountered a fabulous writer, or two, or three, all of us on the same wavelength. They get it. We get each other. We’re a bunch of maniacs. Student. Teacher. It didn’t matter. We quickly formed an alliance, a fraternity, not unlike the Franciscan monks hosting us. And there is nothing like being parted from one’s crutches! Sage Hill removed me from reality. Thank Christ. How long will it last? I am so overwhelmed, I can’t possibly depict it all. So much happened within each day. I will start by recalling some of the most robust memories, and go from there.

My Sage Hill cohorts started calling me New York after a drunken local yokel at the Lumsden bar turned around, pulled down his bright yellow aviator sunglasses from beneath the brim of a formidable black felt Stetson to holler, “Hey New York! I looovvve yer hat.” It is a stunning chapeau, reminiscent of the one Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, and a bit out of place in small-town-Saskatchewan but it keeps the sun off my face so very well. “I like your hat,” I replied, which was true enough. It was one of those tense moments when you’re not sure how things will go. The dude could be benign or he could be psycho. How is one to know? And I kept thinking, I’m just as small town as you are Buster. So I was a little irritated with my pal Leesa (Dean) when she said to him, “Why don’t you trade hats?” I know she was just having fun, but I told her under my breath not to escalate the situation. If she’d been thusly hatted, she could react any way she liked but not when I’m the one in the guy’s sights. The rest of us played it cool, me and Gerry and Susan (Stenson) and Anna and the yahoo soon roared off in his pick-up. Then we all went inside to play pool, Team Doritos and Team Mosquito. I took the last two winning shots! In a dress and heels no less. I was shocked though I may have hustled them a little. “It’s been so long since I played.” It might be a bit like riding a bicycle. Then the goofy guy’s cousin came over and apologized for his antics earlier and bought us a round, a pleasant way to cap a pleasant evening.

Live from Lumsden!

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On a plane, heading to Sage Hill for 10 days of writing, editing and working on my fiction, book launch behind me.  Everything came together to form a fabulous, momentous occasion. Good crowd. I sold a swack of books!  At W2 Storyeum we were provided with a lovely, spacious room replete with giant, fantastic mural on one wall. “Word wizard” Kedrick James is decidedly the host with the most, providing much mirth and mischief throughout. Shannon Rayne in her adorable pixie cut kicked things off. Shannon makes a distinction between poems for performance and poems for the page. I think she said her closing piece about cunnilingus was written for the page. I must write them for voice. Hey, whatever it takes. Then we darkened the room for the world premiere of Bushwhack. I was a little concerned because Continue reading →

Pushing past mania. . .

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I hope! Here I sit, looking past my screen out my window at the Strait of Georgia to the islands beyond, Mayne, Pender, Galiano, wishing I could appoint the trees and sky as muses but there is simply to much to attend to, book launch party-wise to get much writing done. I will persist though, have at least a few more hours to compose. Check out Daniel Zomparelli’s article about it at Geist. Thanks Daniel! I’m getting excited, found a lovely dress to wear at blushingboutique on Richards downtown and will start rehearsing tonight. See you Saturday!

“Dirty Work,” a sonnet Heather Haley style

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Post Canada Day, feeling pretty happy, relieved that I was born here, considering how brutal life is in so many other countries. We’ve got the basics down, just need to fine tune. Post Olympics, many people go on about how difficult it is for Canadians to be patriotic. I think we’d rather be quietly nationalistic, which is quintessentially Canadian in temperament. We don’t need to wear it on our sleeves or shoot bullets into the air.

I can’t rhyme to save my life! Actually, I can of course, but it’s just not in me. I don’t rhyme when I write songs either. Below be a sonnet, Heather Haley style, that I wrote for Geist‘s Jack Pine Sonnet contest:

Dirty Work

I am your golden jackal, shining, grinning.
I wield the flashlight, forge trails through night
blooming jasmine, metropolis serfdom.
I machete weed, ale induced panic.

In the morning you put on the jacket,
admit the thrills, hips, heat up our cunning.
Get to chopping. Onions, peppers, kindling.
Start the fire. Sweep. Brew the java. Rouse.

We share bacon, scrambled eggs and signal
amidst tender yanks. Shrieks! Gentle scuffles.
You entice me with mango juice. Pay day.
Poker. New jeans. A rumpus in the hay.

Ack! Your alarm! Restores smallness, inner priest
rising, freeing the calves we toiled to corral.