Writer, literary activist and good friend Betsy Warland is currently hosting an inter-active, three-way Salon on her website. It centres on her work-in-progress, Oscar of Between, and each month she posts two excerpts — one from Oscar and one contributed by a guest writer. Then she invites people to riff off the two excerpts. Last month I was the guest writer, and put up a section from the opening of Digging to China.
Betsy is a well known Vancouver writer and teacher, former director of The Writers’ Studio at SFU. She’s a poet and non-fiction writer, but in reality invents her genres, as you’ll see in Oscar. A genial and ingenious experimental writer who is capable of rendering a table of contents into poetics, or folding footnotes into poem.
I’m fascinated by the way people have done just what Betsy asked — been sparked by the juxtaposition of the two pieces, found resonances with other work, and ideas. Just like a….salon.
Take a look at what happens….: http://www.betsywarland.com/excerpts-from-oscar-of-between/.
