Eaton Hamilton

the problem with being trans is cis people. The problem with being queer is straight people. The problem with being disabled is abled people. The problem with being Black is white people. In other words, prejudice.

Tag: Jackie Wykes

08/29/2016

Shut Up and Write, Salt Spring Island

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photo by Lee Massey

L-R:  Jane Eaton Hamilton, Sophia Faria, Kat Kosiancic, Gail Meyer, Derek Capitaine, Mary Rose Maclachlan.

Shut Up and Write sessions have become an enduring part of BC culture since AU writers Jackie Wykes and Tom Cho brought them to Vancouver during their writers-in-residency stint at Historic Joy Kogawa House. They now run at Artigiano Café on Main and 24 Wed from 2-5 and will soon be offered through VPL as well. Here on Salt Spring, a group now assembles and writes together for 3 hours in 25-minute stints with breaks. People say they get a lot accomplished. I co-host with Salt Spring Island Public Library, a beautiful and generous facility that’s offered us writing space 3-4 times a week. You can find out more about the sessions in Vancouver or on Salt Spring by joining the FB pages at Shut Up and Write Vancouver and Shut Up and Write Salt Spring Island.

 

 

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09/21/2015

Shut Up and Write

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photo: Tom Cho, 2015

Tom Cho and Jackie Wykes have brought Shut Up and Write back to Vancouver! (I didn’t even know it pre-existed here…) They are the writers-in-residency at Kogawa House, and most Sundays until the end of the year, they’ll be hosting an afternoon writing session. All are welcome to join–they’re putting up a FB page for it.

One thing I learned today? Unlike a lot of young people now, I write by myself and haven’t done much co-writing however defined. Today I understood that I usually write out loud, going over dialogue for my characters, hearing fumbles, arguing with myself about construction, reading text aloud. Staying silent was about as weird as writing without internet. And I also understood that I’m usually kinetic while I write, scratching my head, tapping my fingers etc. Best thing? Socializing and getting so much work done so quickly. 5000 words edited. Worst thing? My body acting up due to being hit by a fire truck recently.

Another (though coincidental because I just brought the current project) weirdness was that ‘The Lost Boy,’ the novel I’m working on, takes place in an internment camp during WWII. Naturally Kogawa House would be the perfect place to work on it, as Tom Cho noted. And I’d completely forgotten Joy Kogawa donated an “artwork” I made for her during our time in Sex, Death and Madness, our then-writing group, to the house, or that I’d donated Joy K’s dad’s 1904 Encyclopedia Brittanica set, minus one volume–those books spent many years in my dining room up on the top of bookshelves gathering dust. I always hoped the kids would want to use them for school projects, but they pronounced them anachronistic.

Best things? Meeting everyone and getting so much work done.

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