Notes on an I.F.O.A.

Now that International Festival Of Authors (the readings festival at the Harborfront center in Toronto) is over, I thought I would do some writeups of some of the most interesting moments of the week as well as the atmosphere of the festival. I should note however that all of the quotes are from memory and should not be taken as absolute.

Nicole Krauss
The first event I went to at IFOA was Nicole Krauss's interview. Krauss was not the most charismatic speaker of the IFOA. Toward the beginning of her interview she asked the audience if they could hear her saying "I'm pretty hard to hear." Despite this, she did prove fairly interesting. She described living as a second generation American with strong roots familiarly in Israel and England. She discussed publishing a story about publishing a story in the New Yorker in the New Yorker. She explained the weirdness of writing unintended autobiography when you are trying the hardest to write something fictitious using the example of writing a story about her desk without realizing it was her desk. I was especially interested in this point. I've always found that my stories often act, when I look back on them, as unintended horoscopes. I knew things about myself and the world in my writing that I wouldn't figure out until months or years afterword.

Comics Panel

On his work at present:
"It's just old people arguing"-Seth
On the perfect work of literature
"It would be Moomins with sex"-Dylan Horrocks

Featuring the ever dapper Seth, Dylan "Hicksville" Horrocks and the very calm and considered Charles Burns, this panel ended up in a discussion of commercial comics work. Seth and Burns had both worked in commercial illustration which they both described as being separate from their comics work. "I would never draw a commercial comic because otherwise I would get confused" said Seth. Horrocks however had worked for several years drawing Batgirl for DC comics and emerging drained and unable to create anything else.

Adam Gopnik, Elenor Catton, Adem Lewis Schroder and M.T. Kelly

This was unquestionably the most canadian and thus not canadian reading of the IFOA. Catton, born in London, Ontario, has lived in New Zealand for most of her life. Gopnik was born in Montreal but writes and talks almost exclusively as a New Yorker. Schroder writes about his time in Asia. M.T. Kelly writes pure canadiana poetry but he was the exception to the rule.I think it says a lot about our culture that the majority of Canadian writers don't write about Canada.

Catton read from her novel The Rehearsal which I had finished just prior to IFOA. It is a wonderful read and she proved to be a fantastic reader. Without having to even appear to try, she was able to invoke her characters beautifully and highlight the theatrical unrealism of the book.

Gopnik read from his kids book which I can not imagine any kid reading. While clever (the main character goes into a fantasy world which includes Times Square Squared which is what it sounds like), it was still fairly unbelievable that any six would be terribly interested in a smoking dwarf with a New York accent and jokes about progressive education. In fairness, he did say it was for whoever would read it so not just kids.

Schroder read with huge amounts of characterization and verve. He was a very enjoyable reader with my only difficulty being that I wasn't sure how well his work would hold up without him reading it. With Catton, her work was good enough that she didn't have to act to bring it to life. I'm not sure if the same was true of Schroder.