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Ruth Daniell

~ poet, writer, editor, teacher

Ruth Daniell

Tag Archives: ice cream

Two Poets with Four Portraits in Saskatoon

28 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by Ruth Daniell in Events & Appearances, Poetry, Publications, Visual Art

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Canlit, chapbook publication, collaboration, cruffin, Elise Marcella Godfrey, Four Portraits, here are circles, ice cream, JackPine Press, James Pepler, Laura Ritland, Lisa Johnson, Little Bird Patisserie & Cafe, McNally Robinson Saskatoon, pelicans, poetry, poetry chapbook, publication, Saskatchewan River, Saskatoon, Terry Ann Carter, Tom Boyko, Vancouver poets, Visual Art, Wendy Donawa

Once upon a time Laura Ritland and I co-wrote and co-illustrated Four Portraits, a chapbook of poems and drawings. Then—with support from the wonderful folk of JackPine Press—we spent hours and hours making the 75 limited edition chapbooks by hand. This process involved a lot of gluing and folding, and scoring and folding, and cutting out of a lot of circles. Here are some pictures of that process.

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With finished chapbooks in our luggage, we hopped onto a plane to Saskatoon. On Saturday, June 25, we gathered at The Woods Alehouse for the JackPine Press launch. James Pepler (poet) and Tom Boyko (artist) launched their video game-inspired chapbook, Side Quest. Wendy Donawa (poet) and Terry Ann Carter (paper expert and book designer) launched their book, The Gorge. Lovely people, all! And, of course, Laura and I read from our book, too. You can find copies of the book through the JackPine Press website. Our thanks to the JackPine Press collective, for their support through the book-making process, and to Lisa Johnson, for welcoming us so wholeheartedly to the city (and making sure we found the ice cream stand that’s run out of an old British double-decker bus).

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Laura Ritland & I pose with the Saskatchewan River & copies of our chapbook, Four Portraits 

Laura and I had an amazing time exploring Saskatoon. We admired, especially, the white pelicans fishing by the weir, as well as the many songbirds we saw beside the river. We similarly were delighted by all the delicious things we ate, but none more than the raspberry creme cruffins we discovered at Little Bird Patisserie & Cafe. We are true cruffin believers.

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We also had a wonderful time (read: an entire afternoon) browsing and buying books at McNally Robinson, where I was pleased to find copies of Boobs on the shelves, and where Laura and I posed with the JackPine Press poster for the chapbook launch because we could. We are so grateful to everyone who supported us as we pursued this project, and are completely charmed by Saskatoon.

One more special thank you to Elise Marcella Godfrey, a dear friend and poet who returned to the West Coast this year but who spent the previous six years in Saskatoon and graciously provided us with a “to do and eat in Saskatoon” list that we may or may not have followed exactly. Poets like plans!

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Be sure to visit the JackPine Press website to learn more about Four Portraits and get your copy of our handmade book!

 

 

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Interview with UBC Creative Writing Alumni Association

15 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by Ruth Daniell in Events & Appearances, Interviews, The Writing Life

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Canlit, chocolate, community, Francine Cunningham, hot chocolate, ice cream, interview, MFA, the writing life, UBC, UBC Alumni, UBC Creative Writing Alumni Association, Vancouver, writing practice

Awhile back, Francine Cunningham interviewed me for the UBC Creative Writing Alumni website, and the videos are now live! If you want to know what my hair looks like after an afternoon of summer bike-riding and how great my favourite lip colour is, in addition to learning what I’m working on right now and how I feel about ice-cream… Check it out, and please share widely so that as many people as possible have the opportunity to hear me talk about fairy tales and line breaks.

UBC Alumni Interview - December 15 2015

My thanks to Fran for taking the time to interview me, and to all the fellow writers who have shared ice-cream and/or hot chocolate with me over discussions about the practice of writing. Writing is a pretty solitary vocation, and it means a lot to have such a warm and wonderful community of talented friends and peers.

Speaking of hot chocolate—it’s the middle of December already! I hope you’re huddled up with great books and some delicious hot drinks. However you’re celebrating the season, my best wishes to you and yours!

A Mermaid in Toronto’s (parenthetical)

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Ruth Daniell in Fiction, Publications

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(parenthetical), fairy tales, flash fiction, ice cream, Jeffrey Ricker, magic, mermaid, Mermaid in the Seine, mermaid lit, Nicole Brewer, Paris, short fiction, short story, summer of mermaid lit, very short fiction, William Kemp, wine, wine bottle

July 15 turned out to be an exciting day because not only was I still feeling dreamy about seeing my work in print in Arc but issue eight of (parenthetical) launched online– a day early! (You can also buy print copies!) One of my short stories appears within its pages! It’s called “Mermaid in the Seine” and it is weird and magical and I think you will like it!

parenthetical issue eight

“Mermaid in the Seine” was inspired, in part, by a bottle of wine that I purchased several months ago. As you probably already know, one of my interests as a writer is fairy tales, so I tend to notice anything with a princess or a frog or a witch or a monster on it… It’s no surprise, really, that I decided to buy a bottle of wine because of its pretty mermaid label.
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The next thing I did was email my pal Jeffrey Ricker, with a snapshot of the bottle, lamenting that he was too far away to drink it with me. He replied with an offhand remark that perhaps drinking that bottle of wine would turn us into mermaids… And something about that idea stuck. (What’s that saying? Good writers borrow? Great writers steal? Ah, well.)

Anyway, speaking of fairy tales and happy endings–it must have been fate that the story was published when it was, right when Jeffrey was actually back in Vancouver for a good long visit–with enough time for us to open up a bottle of wine together. (Not to mention eat at the majority of Vancouver’s best gourmet ice cream shoppes….)

Go check out (parenthetical) right now! It’s filled with lots of other really lovely writing; there’s already a couple poems in there that are new favourites for me. And besides which, its editors–Nicole Brewer and William Kemp–are some of the nicest folks you’ll have the pleasure of supporting. Their emails to me about my weird magical mermaid story were some of the kindest emails I’ve ever received!

An Interview with Ruth Daniell for Geosi Reads

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Ruth Daniell in Interviews, Publications, Swoon

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book blog, Cambie Village, Geosi Gyasi, ice cream, interview, Love and Nail Polish, One Throne Magazine, Rain or Shine Ice Cream, Rapunzel, reading, Sierra Skye Gemma, speech arts, sundae, Swoon, teaching, Vancouver ice cream shoppe, writing

I was recently interviewed by Geosi Gyasi, a Ghanaian poet who writes the popular book blog Geosi Reads. You can now read the whole interview online. I talk about the origins of Swoon, my belief in the importance of speech arts and teaching, my thoughts on literary prizes, as well as some musings about my writing process, with particular insight into how I wrote “Love and Nail Polish,” which was published in One Throne Magazine and is currently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I also talk about Rapunzel and my interest in fairy tales and the preoccupations about love and desire I explore in both my fiction and poetry. Geosi asked interesting and varied questions, and I hope you’ll enjoy the interview!

IMG_8418Earlier today, the gorgeous Sierra Skye Gemma and I met up for another meeting about the upcoming Swoon event (have you marked April 25th on your calendar yet?); we went for ice cream at the new Cambie location of Rain or Shine Ice Cream–because we decided that their salted caramel ice cream would be crucial to a productive meeting. And quite appropriate, really, considering that this year’s Poetry Month theme is food. Ice cream is, undeniably, food. And it might just inspire a poem or two!

Interview with Jordan Hall

08 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Ruth Daniell in Interviews, Swoon, The Writing Life

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Carmilla, dessert, ice cream, interview, Jordan Hall, playwright, screenwriter, SmokeBomb Entertainment, Swoon, waffles, webseries

IMG_5774I met up with Jordan Hall—who was one of the inaugural readers at Swoon in spring 2013 and is the current Playwright-in-Residence at Pi Theatre—to eat waffles and ice cream and talk to her about Carmilla, the new webseries that she wrote and is currently airing every Tuesday and Thursday for SmokeBomb Entertainment. You can go read the interview over on the Swoon website: “ ‘Writing can be like eating chocolate cake’: Swooning over Jordan Hall’s New Webseries Carmilla.”

Check it out! Jordan Hall is an incredibly lovely person and very talented.

The Brightest Thing (Poems)

Boobs (anthology)

Boobs: Women Explore What It Means to Have Breasts

Four Portraits (chapbook)

Archives

Swoon Reading Series

Ruth Rhymes

Bolton Academy of Spoken Arts

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