Hi all,
First I thought I’d share why I’ll be so busy for the next little while, in case you want to join me. I’m excited about three online festival-type things this month:
FOLD (the Festival of Literary Diversity) goes from May 1 to 7, but the recordings will be available until early June for people who’ve bought passes. I’ve really enjoyed this festival the last couple years. The passes are quite reasonable (just 35$ for virtual access) and there are lots of events. This one would be good for anyone who likes to read, not just writers.
The BC Writer’s Summit goes from May 14 to 20, and most events will be recorded and available for a couple of weeks afterwards. The Federation of BC Writers’ annual online festival is for writers (hence the name), and 129$ to sign up for non-members. Last year’s was great, and I’m looking forward to a bunch of the planned events.
Amherst Writers and Artists is an organization that offers incredibly powerful generative writing workshops. The difference most people notice in an AWA workshop is that when responding to each other’s just-written work, everyone only comments on what’s strong, what we like. It makes for a very safe space. I first came across the AWA method with Deepam Wadds’ workshops, and loved them so much I looked up the AWA. I’m even going to be taking the facilitation training to learn how to lead my own AWA workshops this summer. During the entire month of May they’re doing their annual Write Around the World fundraiser, where they offer tonnes of workshops on zoom, which cost a donation starting at 10$. I’ve signed up for possibly too many workshops, but they’re so hard to resist! These would be good for writers and people who don’t think they’re writers, and the schedule is here.
The other reason I’ll be so busy is that I’m doing an actual in-person reading at the Sidney Public Library on Thursday May 19th at 7 pm. If you live nearby I would love to see you there.
With all that busy-ness, it was such a relief yesterday to go for a walk in Uplands Park with my mum. We saw deer tracks on the sometimes muddy paths, above and below other hikers’ boot prints, and one raccoon print.
We saw so many camas that they changed the colour of the ground from green to purple in huge swathes. Camas are purple, though they’re called blue. The bulbs of the camas, which were dug in late June, were an important food source for the WSANEC people before colonialism.
We also, I thought, saw a few Meadow Death-camas, which are very similar to normal camas except with white flowers. Also poisonous. When it’s time to harvest, the flowers are gone, and much care must be taken not to harvest the wrong kind of bulbs.
When I got home and checked in Saanich Ethnobotany: Culturally Important Plants of the WSANEC People by Nancy J. Turner and Richard J. Hebda, however, it seems the white camas flowers I saw were just a camas oddity. The death camas has a more densely clustered spike of flowers.
We also saw some shooting stars (lovely pink native flower), and what my mum thought was farewell to spring, another native flower. But when she came home to check, it looked like it might be a regular weed after all. She was sad about that, because she’s seen a bunch of whatever it is in her native garden. So we were both a little let down by books yesterday.
All told it was a lovely walk, and we felt very smart (until we got home and looked stuff up).
FROM THE SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
Here’s a poem lauding another seasonal flower:
Hyacinthoides
Don’t tell me it’s wrong to want bluebells
rising up the hill, a tide in the plantings by the stairs
lapping under ferns at the top.
Here, where fall does not go to gold
let me look down in the spring afternoon and see the future:
false twilight in the shade of the pines.
If nothing else, let’s pretend that we want them.
Call them volunteers. The poor things do not know
my brother names them weeds.
NOTES
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And thanks, as always, for reading.
Yours,
Kelsey
kelseyandrews.ca
I signed up for a workshop on Sunday- Just Write (after your post link).
Love the Camas (and I live in Camas, WA!) also love the Amherst connection. I'm a believer in this method of writing and have a small group of writers that is just getting started. I used to lead two groups pre-COVID at the Camas Library and Vancouver L. It would be lovely to write with you sometime.