Selling a good book for a good cause

All too often, especially during the Olympics, we hear stories from media outsiders who visit the neighbourhood for a short tour and then report all the bad things they see. While many journalists come looking for sensational stories of crime and addiction, some have good intentions. Of course, it’s important to shed light on problems to raise awareness in society at large, but too often reporters miss the stories of spirit and community in this neighbourhood. That’s why Hope in Shadows is such an important project.

It all started in 2003 with a photography contest for locals that published winning images in an annual calendar. Today the project also includes cards and this new book that has sold more than 5,000 copies. Hope in Shadows is a registered charity that works in partnership with Pivot Legal Society, and 50 percent of street sales go to the vendors.

“Pivot makes this product so people can earn some extra money from it,” said Vincent, who I spoke with today on Commercial Drive. “I believe in Pivot. I like the work they do and not only am I making a few extra dollars, but I’m also contributing to the cause.”

Vincent said he has been without a home in the past, but today he has a place to live and is working with The Open Door Group to find a new career. Years ago, he studied English and History and came within two courses of completing a degree, but severe depression and the pressures of life threw him off track. Now he’s planning to forge a new career in counselling, helping homeless folks find housing and a better quality of life.

Hope in Shadows book editors Brad Cran and Gillian Jerome were nominated in 2009 for the B.C. Book Prize: Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. This prize is “awarded to the author(s) of the book which contributes most to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia. The book may deal with any aspect of the province (people, history, geography, oceanography, etc.) and must be original,” says the B.C. Book Prizes website.

Andrew of It's All Fun & Games at the new location on Commercial Drive

Andrew works at It’s All Fun & Games – a beloved toy store in my neighbourhood – which has moved to 1832 Commercial Drive (between 2nd and 3rd). A drastic rent increase forced the small business from its old location a few blocks away.

It’s All Fun & Games has many regular customers, like me, who support the store and see it as an important part of the community. Toddlers like to play with the Playmobil train set at the back, everyone who works there is nice, and it’s a really friendly, welcoming environment. They have an amazing Playmobil selection, games, puzzles, baby toys, art supplies, and a refreshing lack of weapon toys.

In case you are wondering, I’m not getting paid to say this. I just want to share the location of this really cool store for anyone who needs to buy a gift. Just ask Andrew (or any of his nice coworkers) and they’ll give you a great suggestion, no doubt.

A silly staged photo taken by Dave Dawson, on request of Susan Main

Last night my son and I went to the Grand Finale night of the Vancouver Real Writers’ Series and I won an advance copy of Darwin’s Bastards Astounding Tales of Tomorrow edited by Zsuzsi Gartner.

It includes 23 stories from different writers – including William Gibson and Timothy Taylor, who last night read an excerpt from a novel he expects to publish in a year. Actually he left us in a very suspenseful moment of the story…

According to the Douglas & McIntyre website, the stories in Darwin’s Bastards “…take us on a twisted, wild ride into some future times and parallel universes where characters as diverse as a dead boy, a one-legged international actuarial forensics specialist, a pharmaceutical guinea pig, and a far-sighted fetus engage in their own games of the survival of the fittest.”

Thanks to organizer Sean Cranbury, all the writers, event coordinator Fleurie Hunter, and everyone at W2 for putting on this great series. I felt so happy to see how nice people were to my super-friendly son – the only kid there. (I asked ahead to see if it would be okay, as I always do.) Thankfully he was on his near-best behavior for much of it, though he did get a bit wound up after that great deal on Nanaimo bars…

We plan to go back on Saturday night for the W2 Olympic Wrap-Up Party where Vancouver’s legendary Hard Rock Miners will be playing – and inviting everyone to join in for a sing-a-long. The Hard Rock Miners Sing Along is a monthly event at the Railway Club and I recall hearing it would not be happening during the Olympics month – so it’s at W2 instead.

W2 Media Centre Vancouver BC (S.Main photo)

“It’s a very sad thing it’s all over but I think we did our best for 53 years to offer a good book service and to help to create a knowledgeable reading public,” Celia Duthie told us.

One of the people I talked with last night was Sean Cranbury, organizer of the Real Vancouver Writers Series at the W2 Culture + Media House.

“These evenings are designed to show the city and the world real and diverse Vancouver culture and real creative individuals in the literary and publishing communities at a time when the eyes of the world are on our city,” Sean wrote on the Real Writers blog.

Every Wednesday in February, starting at 7 p.m., a line-up of local writers will hit the stage at W2 (112 West Hastings. Last week was standing room only, so get there early for this week’s line-up that includes: Teresa McWhirter, Lee Henderson, Heather Susan Haley, Nikki Reimer, Chris Hutchinson, Dina Del Bucchia, Amber Dawn, Donato Mancini, Sonnet L’Abbe, Jonathon Wilcke, Catherine Owen, and Meredith Quartermain.

Home learning in action (photo by Susan Main)

Writer and teacher Susan Wise Bauer describes writing as a two-part process:

1) Putting the idea into words (in your mind)
2) Putting the words onto paper

It sounds simple. However, many students never learned to break it down this way. Teachers tend to approach writing like language immersion: just keep doing it as much as you can and you’ll figure it out. While this may work for a few people, it’s not effective for everyone – hence all those “I hate writing” folks.

According to Wise Bauer – who wrote a series of books called Writing With Ease: Strong Fundamentals – we learn speech as a part of natural development. Writing, however, is different; Wise Bauer says: “written language is an unnatural foreign language, an artificially constructed code.” Written language comes with rules and conventions – like punctuation and appropriate use of capitals – that writers must learn before they can communicate effectively.

The act of writing will not feel “natural” until you are accustomed to these conventions. To be clear, I’m talking about “old school” grammatically correct writing – not texting or online messaging, which is almost like a different genre of writing, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong: I love all the online acronyms and text message jargon and I think this is a totally valid way of communicating.

The Writing With Ease series is mainly for parents of home learners (like me) and also for people who want to enhance what their kids are learning in regular school programs. Each lesson is quick (10 to 20 minutes) and straightforward, starting with me reading a story aloud.

I ask him questions about the story, which gives him practice putting his thoughts into words. I write his answers to the questions, while he watches and sees how it’s done – how there are capitals and punctuation, etc. – then he copies the text I wrote.

This process breaks down the task, and eventually written communication feels more manageable. I wonder if the people who hate writing would feel differently if they had learned this way. Maybe they would not create what Wise Bauer sees in her college level classes: “incoherent, fragmented, unpunctuated papers written by students who graduated from well-funded high schools with small classrooms and qualified teachers.”

I’ve heard similar comments from friends who are teaching assistants and instructors of college and university students. They are shocked to see how terrible most of the writing is. Wise Bauer blames it on early education: “I have become convinced that most writing instruction is fundamentally flawed because children are never taught the most basic skill of writing, the skill on which everything rests: how to put words down on paper.”

After a few weeks using this method, I’m glad to report my son is starting to like writing, in small doses. He even started a LiveJournal blog recently (though the novelty has worn off a bit). Later, we will check out the writing prompts at a cool website called Children Write the Future – which I learned about via Twitter from @writerdad.

Does your kid hate writing? Do you?

“Why did I call it Twitterville? Because everything about Twitter I love has a certain retro feel – a certain small town feel, the sense of two neighbours talking over a backyard fence,” Shel told us. “Over time we get to know each other in some depth and the shallow conversations about the weather and what we had for lunch at the cafe becomes deeper. We talk about our feelings, our backgrounds, our lives.”

Shel said he collected stories for his book by posting questions on Twitter. He learned about how people were using Twitter for business, education, non-profits, government, and politics.

“I got some really cool stories,” Shel said. “Every time I asked for something, I got more information than I needed. Sometimes I got an overwhelming number. And I got to cherry pick the stories I put together in the book.”

He said if you type “twitter” into Amazon’s search box, you will get 14 books on the subject – and his is thirteenth. Shel said he has read about half of them so far and that they are “really really good.”

“Why is my book different? It’s not because I’m trying to tell you why to use Twitter and I’m certainly not telling you how to use Twitter,” Shel said. “I simply went out and I continued doing what I’ve been doing for quite a few years. I talked to a whole mess of people about how they were using Twitter.”

Shel said: “My hope is that people who know Twitter will come to the book, read it and say: ‘Yes. That has the ring of truth. That’s what the thing is about.’ My hope is that all of you who know Twitter already, when you’re asked about twitter for business, with a boss, with an employee, with a friend, you will say: ‘Here read this book.’ And every time you do, an angel doesn’t ring a bell. I make five bucks. I urge you to buy early, buy often.”