I’m always surprised to see blank stares on writers’ faces when I launch into a speech about copyright. Some of them aren’t clear why copyright really matters. Others aren’t sure what copyright even is. Fair enough—it’s not the sexiest topic in the writing world. But even if you don’t notice it, it’s fundamental to our business.
I told someone a story because I knew they would spread it. Stories were told to me with the same intent. Between women in Canlit, these circulated narratives are often about men in the community. Charming abusers. Tenured predators. Shitty men with track records of repeated shittiness. Let’s be explicit: women don’t take joy from these stories, in being the orator or the audience.
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I’m joining the team as the new CNF Editor. I’m ready to read all your nonfiction—but I have a particular fondness for the lyric essay, the flash essay, striking memoir, non-consumptive travel writing, interviews with surprising people, critical essays that teach us something, care about language and can be appreciated by a general audience, and mixed-or-hybrid prose pieces that actively redefine what creative non-fiction can be and do.
Paige Cooper’s stories have appeared in a number of excellent journals and have been anthologized in The Journey Prize Stories and Best Canadian Stories. Her debut collection Zolitude was published by Biblioasis this past February. Hailing from Canmore, based in Montreal, and traveling widely in person and on the page, Paige creates fictional worlds that resist easy categorization or resolution. Brad de Roo spoke with her about narrative corruption, artistic tourism, short story form, and ‘the splashy chaos of reality.’
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THE CNFC AND CARTE BLANCHE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THEIR 2017–2018 CREATIVE NONFICTION CONTEST SHORTLIST.
The winner will be announced on May 5 in Toronto, ON at the 14th annual CNFC conference.
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Forgive the very earnest introduction, but I’m really happy to be joining a group of people who I think believe that what they do matters in our big and little pictures.