This Week on Friday Live: Kristene Perron, Daniel Cowper, and Melissa Mary Duncan

O Canada!

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter P and the number 4.

The P is for procrastination. They say to have writer’s block, one has to have written, but the brick wall loomed immediately, every precious word cowering on the other side. And 4 is for the number of recipes I tackled while ignoring my silent muse. (Procrastination’s gifts of fraught avoidance? Vanilla cupcakes, maple scones, jam cookies, and chocolate lava cake — because sugar.)

And while my family was delighted to satisfy every sweet tooth and carb craving, I still faced a blank page, grappling hook in hand. Then, for reasons mysterious, a little voice inside whispered, Joni Mitchell. So to Google, and this: At the point where I’m trying to force something and it’s not happening, and I’m getting frustrated with, say, writing a poem, I can go and pick up the brushes and start painting. At the point where the painting seems to not be going anywhere, I go and pick up the guitar.

Or in my case, the mixing bowl, and then, while the cookies were in the oven, the dirty laundry.

Why the wall? Why Joni Mitchell? Likely because today is Canada Day and, truth be told, I ache a little with our collective growing pains. Although I spent the last week thinking about today’s post, to address all of this beautiful country’s highs and lows in under three hundred words felt more than a little daunting.

I adore Canada. As a child of immigrants whose parents decided to make this country home, I have inherited the fortunes and freedoms of their choice. And for that I am so grateful. But the headlines of today, and the mistakes of yesterday, leave me uncertain as to what we will wake up to tomorrow. And so I bake.

Recipes, like the best of stories, guide us from beginning to middle to (the often delicious) end. A pinch of salt or a plot twist to deepen the flavour. A dash of cinnamon or a well-wrought phrase for bounce. And a scoop of sugar or literary levity (or maple syrup, eh?) to remind us of life’s sweetness.

Recipes, like the best of nations, attempt to weave everything (or everyone) together. To make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Often confusing, occasionally messy, sometimes rewarding — kind of like facing a blank page. To Joni and to my fellow Canadians, thank you for helping me scale the wall.

From all of us at Pulp Literature, wishing you a happy and healthy Canada Day.

Friday’s live line-up

Every Friday, from 10:00-10:30am Pacific, we are livestreaming readings featuring three authors who will read their work and answer questions from the audience. This week on Friday Live, we bring you Kristene Perron, Daniel Cowper, and Melissa Mary Duncan.

Kristene Perron

Kristene Perron has been shot, stabbed, drowned, run over, and thrown from a building. During her ten years as a professional stunt woman, she learned all the interesting ways a person can get injured or die and then applied this unique education to her fiction. Her story ‘Flavour of the Forsaken’ appeared in Issue 20. She is the co-author of the adventure science fiction series Warpworld, the 2010 winner of the Surrey International Writers’ Conference Storyteller Award, and a 2015 Writers of the Future finalist. Her stories have appeared in Escape Pod, Denizens of Darkness, Canadian Storyteller Magazine, The Barbaric Yawp, and Hemispheres Magazine. Her friends wish she would stop talking about cats. You can find bits of Kristene on Twitter as @KristenePerron, on Facebook as @warpworld, or on Warpworld.ca.

Daniel Cowper

Daniel Cowper is one of the poetry editors for Pulp Literature. His own poetry has appeared in literary publications in Canada, the US, and Ireland, and in 2017 his poetry was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. He is the author of The God of Doors, which won the Frog Hollow Press Chapbook Contest in 2016, and Grotesque Tenderness, a collection of poetry published in 2019 by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Melissa Mary Duncan

Fantasy artist and illustrator Melissa Mary Duncan lives in New Westminster, BC, with her husband, author dvs Duncan. An avid historic re-enactor, neo-Edwardian, and wishful thinker, Melissa has a passion for life, learning, and the creative process. She has had numerous solo exhibitions and her art has found homes in private collections from Japan to Great Britain. Her book, Faye — the Art of Melissa Mary Duncan, was released in 2013 and is available for sale through her website. Her paintings The Beer Fairy, Fondly Remembered Magic, The Storyteller, and Frost and Snow have graced the covers of Pulp Literature. She is the cover artist for Allaigna’s Song: Overture and Allaigna’s Song: Aria, both from Pulp Literature Press. Find more of her beautiful paintings at melissamaryduncan.ca.