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Sitting Practice reviewed by Carla Luccetta
By Carla Lucchetta -- This review is reprinted by permission of the freelance owner of the article. Permission granted on October 8, 2003,
Vancouver writer Caroline Adderson, whose third book, Sitting Practice, has just hit the bookstores, has a recipe for a successful writing career. That recipe-talent, encouragement, community and commitment-has garnered her critical praise, an Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, a Governor General's award nomination and a place on Margaret Atwood's hot list of Canadian women writers to watch. Not bad for someone who fell into creative writing by happenstance.
Born in Edmonton, Adderson moved to Vancouver in 1983 to complete an education degree at UBC, but halfway through, fate stepped in and changed the course of her life. Her roommate, a biology PhD student, successfully pitched and sold a story to the New Yorker. "He was flashing this around like it was some kind of acceptance and I thought, 'Hmmm... people always tell me I'm good at letter writing,'" says Adderson. So, she put a creative writing portfolio together and was accepted into third year in the creative writing department.
There, she was lucky enough to come under the tutelage of writer Andreas Schroeder, who encouraged her to apply for a Canada Council grant, which she received the first time out. "So, my first job after university was to write a book of short stories," she says. During that time she taught English and ESL, attended the Banff Centre for the Arts writing program, landed a couple of coveted positions teaching creative writing at UBC, including at Booming Ground, a yearly intensive book publishing conference, and took part in a writers' trip to Cuba at the invitation of Margaret Atwood.
After six years and lots of hard work "writing out the crap and finding my stride," Bad Imaginings was published to high praise in 1993.
Adderson gives the impression of a hard-working and committed, no-nonsense professional who, rather than being born to write, lucked into it, but her work reveals the acute sensibility of a true artist. Her characters are ordinary enough but the life challenges she gives them are extraordinary. The subjects she is "drawn to"-Alzheimer's, hate crimes, the Holocaust, living with a disability, religious extremism-are the antithesis to her seemingly uncomplicated Kerrisdale life, complete with her husband of six years (filmmaker Bruce Sweeney) and four-year-old son. "I draw on the emotions I have felt, I'm not writing about anything that has happened to me," she says.
For that, she relies on the kind of research most people would consider too heavy to tackle. Her first novel, A History of Forgetting, about a man who loses his partner to Alzheimer's and a co-worker to a gay-bashing murder, required a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Poland. For Sitting Practice, about a newlywed couple whose relationship is forever altered by a tragic car accident, Adderson engaged in Internet discussions with women suffering spinal cord injuries. She wanted to accurately portray Iliana's transformation-with all its emotional texture-from a tall, athletic, carefree young woman to one whose life is confined to a wheelchair.
Despite her topics, Adderson is often a humorous writer and is at her best creating three-dimensional characters, who are equal parts endearing and ugly. Ross, Iliana's doting new husband, and his neurotic, single mum twin sister Bonnie are two characters you love, then hate, then love again. "I think it's important to be empathetic. That's how you develop a character," she says.
It's also important for Adderson to situate her fiction, at least partly, in Kerrisdale, which she feels has a unique quality of community. A History of Forgetting takes place mostly in a hair salon on 41st Avenue. In Sitting Practice, Ross and Iliana start out in Kerrisdale and end up in Duncan, home of the world's largest hockey stick.
"I think we should start accepting Canadian locations in fiction the way we accept American and British ones. I mean, when Annie Proulx writes about Wyoming no one asks her why," says Adderson, who also advises her students to leave their Canadian locations in their stories.
Since Adderson was first published in 1993, the publishing world has gone through a kind of youth-oriented shift-novice writers are getting big publishing house contracts straight away. Adderson considers herself one of the last of the generation of writers following a traditional career track in publishing, moving from small press to larger, with the room and encouragement to develop with every publication.
"Writers are not figure skaters," she says. "We don't peak at 19. Talent has nothing to do with age. It has to do with how long you've been writing, how much you read, and how open you are."
When it comes to teaching creative writing, she maintains that although she can't really teach the talent part, she can offer encouragement, a sense of community and commitment-everything she's been lucky to have received.
October/2003
Vancouver writer Caroline Adderson, whose third book, Sitting Practice, has just hit the bookstores, has a recipe for a successful writing career. That recipe-talent, encouragement, community and commitment-has garnered her critical praise, an Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, a Governor General's award nomination and a place on Margaret Atwood's hot list of Canadian women writers to watch. Not bad for someone who fell into creative writing by happenstance.
Born in Edmonton, Adderson moved to Vancouver in 1983 to complete an education degree at UBC, but halfway through, fate stepped in and changed the course of her life. Her roommate, a biology PhD student, successfully pitched and sold a story to the New Yorker. "He was flashing this around like it was some kind of acceptance and I thought, 'Hmmm... people always tell me I'm good at letter writing,'" says Adderson. So, she put a creative writing portfolio together and was accepted into third year in the creative writing department.
There, she was lucky enough to come under the tutelage of writer Andreas Schroeder, who encouraged her to apply for a Canada Council grant, which she received the first time out. "So, my first job after university was to write a book of short stories," she says. During that time she taught English and ESL, attended the Banff Centre for the Arts writing program, landed a couple of coveted positions teaching creative writing at UBC, including at Booming Ground, a yearly intensive book publishing conference, and took part in a writers' trip to Cuba at the invitation of Margaret Atwood.
After six years and lots of hard work "writing out the crap and finding my stride," Bad Imaginings was published to high praise in 1993.
Adderson gives the impression of a hard-working and committed, no-nonsense professional who, rather than being born to write, lucked into it, but her work reveals the acute sensibility of a true artist. Her characters are ordinary enough but the life challenges she gives them are extraordinary. The subjects she is "drawn to"-Alzheimer's, hate crimes, the Holocaust, living with a disability, religious extremism-are the antithesis to her seemingly uncomplicated Kerrisdale life, complete with her husband of six years (filmmaker Bruce Sweeney) and four-year-old son. "I draw on the emotions I have felt, I'm not writing about anything that has happened to me," she says.
For that, she relies on the kind of research most people would consider too heavy to tackle. Her first novel, A History of Forgetting, about a man who loses his partner to Alzheimer's and a co-worker to a gay-bashing murder, required a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Poland. For Sitting Practice, about a newlywed couple whose relationship is forever altered by a tragic car accident, Adderson engaged in Internet discussions with women suffering spinal cord injuries. She wanted to accurately portray Iliana's transformation-with all its emotional texture-from a tall, athletic, carefree young woman to one whose life is confined to a wheelchair.
Despite her topics, Adderson is often a humorous writer and is at her best creating three-dimensional characters, who are equal parts endearing and ugly. Ross, Iliana's doting new husband, and his neurotic, single mum twin sister Bonnie are two characters you love, then hate, then love again. "I think it's important to be empathetic. That's how you develop a character," she says.
It's also important for Adderson to situate her fiction, at least partly, in Kerrisdale, which she feels has a unique quality of community. A History of Forgetting takes place mostly in a hair salon on 41st Avenue. In Sitting Practice, Ross and Iliana start out in Kerrisdale and end up in Duncan, home of the world's largest hockey stick.
"I think we should start accepting Canadian locations in fiction the way we accept American and British ones. I mean, when Annie Proulx writes about Wyoming no one asks her why," says Adderson, who also advises her students to leave their Canadian locations in their stories.
Since Adderson was first published in 1993, the publishing world has gone through a kind of youth-oriented shift-novice writers are getting big publishing house contracts straight away. Adderson considers herself one of the last of the generation of writers following a traditional career track in publishing, moving from small press to larger, with the room and encouragement to develop with every publication.
"Writers are not figure skaters," she says. "We don't peak at 19. Talent has nothing to do with age. It has to do with how long you've been writing, how much you read, and how open you are."
When it comes to teaching creative writing, she maintains that although she can't really teach the talent part, she can offer encouragement, a sense of community and commitment-everything she's been lucky to have received.
October/2003
Submitted on October 9, 2003 in By David.
