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current Monday
Report below!
This week's report by Leopold McGinnis, RedFez.net
All the Queen’s Robber Barons, Part Two
Which brings us to grants. Since the early days of cultural invasion from south
of the border, the Canadian government has been dolling out grants to help
support the survival and availability of Canadian culture. While I personally
believe it is important for the public sector to play a role in supporting cultural
endeavours, lest they be usurped by foreign products or sunk in the waters of
corporate mass production, the granting agencies have little vision, resting
their laurels on standards crafted by the same elitist journals and authors
funneled into Lord positions.
According to the Canada Council for the Arts, they support emerging, mid-
career and established artists. To apply you must be a ‘professional artist’
which the CCA defines as: someone who has specialized training in the field
(not necessarily in academic institutions), who is recognized as such by her or
his peers (artists working in the same artistic tradition), and who has a history
of public presentation or publication. Further in the maze of bureau-babble one
discovers exactly what this means. One must be a recognized ‘professional’
[quotes mine] writer who has had:
At least one book published by a professional publishing house;
OR for fiction, a minimum of four texts of creative writing (e.g. short stories,
excerpts from a novel) published on two separate occasions in literary
magazines, recognized periodicals (including consumer magazines) or
anthologies published by professional publishing houses;
OR for poetry, a minimum of 10 published poems is required;
OR for literary non-fiction, a minimum of 40 pages (10,000 words) of articles
published in literary magazines, recognized periodicals or anthologies
published by professional publishing houses.
Only literary publications that have gone through an independent editorial
selection process and for which the author has received financial
compensation will be considered. Privately printed publications, as well as
writing published in community newspapers, free or student magazines, or
newsletters of associations or other organizations are not eligible for the
purposes of this program. [emphasis mine]
In other words, unless something has already been vetted on several
occasions by corporate presses or the ‘established’ literary journals
mentioned above, an actual emerging writer or new Canadian talent has no
hope of getting financial support from the government. The grants council is
just as interested in maintaining appearances of supporting ‘real’ literature as
the social club éliterati. Genuine interest in supporting original Canadian
talent, developing a genuine Canadian cultural landscape - rather than just
endless references to maple leafs, Canada geese or central Canadian
landscapes – is not the real goal.
Next throw in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (a meek version of the
UK’s BBC) which, when not devoting 90% of its airtime to music crafted seven
generations ago, proudly states its support of the literary arts. Besides
frequent radio plays, which many people have confessed to me bore them to
tears, the CBC runs the annual CBC Literary Awards. Three judges reside over
this panel open to ‘everyone’ and submissions cost a mere $20. Two of the
three judges for short fiction last year were from Toronto – both deeply
entrenched in the university literary stream – (one of whose books, according
to her bio, ‘explores the possibility of love and faith after the Holocaust, with
language marked by power, elegance, and integrity’ – are we STILL talking
about WWII?) Credit goes to the CBC for making the third person a First
Nations (Native Indian), however Mr. Highway is also heavily ensconced in the
university stream and even if he were to disagree, the odds are stacked
against him.
I don’t have the time to go over all of the judges (and you probably don’t have
the interest) but a mere cursory attempt at research shows how the cards are
stacked. The weight falls heavily on central Canadian artists, particularly those
who have been moulded through the ‘academic’ steamrollers. The steep entry
fee alone seems suspect for a national literary award funded by tax dollars –
one wonders if it is just a gatekeeper to keep out ‘undesirable’ entries.
Back to the Giller (And the award goes to…Lord and Lady Whozits)
We have just traveled a much abbreviated version of the English Canadian
literary death machine. Once all that hard work has been done by the social
clubs, éliterati pet-journals and visionless government programs, we are left
with the cream of the crop for awards organizations to lavish their well-to-do
(tax deductible) generosity and vision upon. It’s a win-win situation, really.
Lord and Lady Whozits get to rub noses with the pre-approved artist élites and
the artists get to further the implication that their art is so merit worthy that
élite wealth and attention is naturally lavished upon them.
The judges of this year’s Giller are Charlotte Gray (an Ontario writer
previously nominated for the Governor General’s award), Alistair McLeod (a
professor of English and Creative writing in Windsor, judge of the CBC Literary
Awards in 2002 and another resident of Ontario), and MG. Vassanji (an East-
Indian Canadian who has won the Giller twice and lives in…wait for
it…Ontario.) In the 11 years that the Giller prize has been around only one
prize winner has been younger than 50 (Rohinton Mistry at 43 in the first year
of the prize) and the average age of everyone following has been sixty. 9 out
of the 10 winners have been from Ontario with the other one from Montreal
which is still right in the heart of the central Canadian navel gazing cesspool.
The prize? $25,000. Of course, by the time I’m writing this paragraph, this year’
s winner has been announced: And the winner is Alice Munro, 73, for the
second time. Good ol’ Alice has also won the Governor General’s award 3
times. Have they run out of writers to award already?
Previous Giller winners come from that small, but endlessly mentioned, list of
‘great’ Canadian writers: Mordecai Richler, Michael Ondaatje and, perhaps the
most fawned over of Canadian authors, Margaret Atwood - who received her
award with an incredibly pompous statement that in one short phrase typifies
all her work: ‘Prizes are apples of discord’. My question to you is, do you think
she prepared her speech beforehand?
Considering the inbred nature of this circus, can we wonder that the general
public’s interest in reading is greatly diminishing? The Canadian literature
spotlight has been robbed by the most incestuous bunch of self-publishers
and self-awarders ever known on this soil. The literary scene more and more
resembles a bad Hollywood blockbuster summer where 6 movies about
asteroids come out within three weeks of each other.
A few days after I write this final paragraph the Governor General’s award
winner will be announced. Though the government organization has a longer
and better track record of awarding a more diverse group of people, the
accessibility of the books don’t fare much better. Alice Munro is on the list this
year as well and of the five books in the final running, 4 are from central
Canadian writers.
This year the Giller Prize ran a contest in Canadian libraries inviting people to
‘Guess the Giller’. I’d be interested to see how many people even bothered.
The upcoming Governor General’s awards ceremonies have already jumped
off the Giller buzz for a similar fiesta of literary self-aggrandizement, but I can
guarantee you that the average Canadian couldn’t give a fuck. By the time you’
re reading this the 2004 prize has mostly likely been announced. You can go
check out the winner if you want, but the whole affair is kind of like a
hypothetical political race between the world’s favourite fascists. Does it
really matter who wins? Notes & Links: 1) For a great example of how out-of-
touch established writers are with the real world, please read the ‘writing
philosophy’ of this famous artist, including great clunkers like: “We are likely
to be at best Wordsworthian priests of nature, with all the egotistical sublime
that entails.” http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/bowering/write.htm.
2) I should point out that this article really only covers the English language
literature scene in Canada as I can’t speak with much (or any) authority on the
French scene.
______________
Sources: Info in this piece on the Canadian Council for the Arts comes from:
www.canadacouncil.ca/grants/writing/ri127227329682968750.htm
...and here: www.canadacouncil.ca/writing. Anyone interested in looking at the
CBC awards site can go here: www.cbc.ca/literaryawards.
Leopold’s ezine is at www.redfez.net.
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