So Much Happening

So much indeed.  As many of you will know by now, The Odyssey was an enormous success -- starting out with 100 listeners (a figure that rose to 140 at the half-time), calling great things from the tellers and proving so compelling the the audience simply wanted more.  Check out the sidebar on the 2wp home page for the links to various illuminating blogs, along with a video clip from the Greek ambassador who spoke movingly about the importance of this story for all of us today. Also the words to What Shall We Do With A Drunken Suitor.

There was a brief breathing space for wit-gathering and recuperation and then Jennifer and I were off to the Westben Arts Festival Theatre in Campbellford, ON to attend the premiere performance of The Auction. Yes, folks, that picture book I created back in 1990 has now achieved another life in the form of an opera. I knew it wouldn't be the story of the book.  My concern was for the book's spirit and that was made to shine through bright and clear.  Westben is a wonderful place -- a performance barn in the middle of a beautiful rural setting -- http://www.westben.ca/ .  Artistic values are high and a strong community concern pervades all: witness the scarecrows made by community groups to enhance the ambience.  The audience wanted to talk and talk about what they had seen, drawing on the memories it evoked for them.  Huge congratulations to composer John Burge and librettist Eugene Benson for their achievement.  Check out http://www.facebook.com/westbentheatre for pics and further details.

Summer brings its pleasures.  Jennifer is visiting family in Paris and I am about to take off for a week of hiking in the Adirondacks.  I can't say the whole shebang is downtime, however.  In fact, I am up to my eyeballs in the edits for a young adult novel which is to be titled The Silent Summer of Kyle McGinley and which will be brought out by Great Plains Publications in Spring 2013.  I started work on this in 2006 and it has had its challenges, largely due to the fact that the central character chooses to stop speaking in the first chapter and doesn't start again until near the end.  Added to that, everything that happens comes through his perspective. I had opted for a stream of consciousness approach but that definitely had its problems.  How to deal with this?  My editor has proposed changing the point of view to first person present.  I believe it's making a huge and crucial difference but I can't say it isn't taking up a fair whack of time.  The task does get easier.  I feel a growing sense of freedom, but I still can't always get my head quickly around the need to look through a slightly different lens.  Am enormously grateful that, as a writer, I have a definite leaning towards terseness.  Imagine being Dickens!

News from the lake? The loons that inhabit our bay really do appear successfully to be raising two chicks.  This certainly doesn't happen every year.  The goslings are almost grown but I saw a family of still-small ducklings yesterday.  The beaver comes by almost nightly.  There are occasional sightings of snapping turtles raising their heads above the surface of the water.  I am claiming at least some gains in my battle against the rose chafer beetles.  The roses are, in fact, truly lovely and that, for me, is grand.

As for 2wp, the next season is planned and an announcement will be forthcoming in the not too distant future.  Indeed and indeed, all is well.

Scarecrows at Westben.  Caribou-Man was made by a group of Innu children in foster care, under the guidance of a local artist.  It seems to have such power.