There’s a  handmade sign in red letters on the sidewalk outside the Nanaimo Bakery that says “Bakery Open” which means people can still buy their bread and sweet treats these days. But, the café part of the bakery isn’t open right now which means the Chandelier Coffee Writers are not having their monthly gatherings.

A group of women writers from Nanaimo and surrounding towns such as Lantzville and Chemainus as well as Gabriola Island, have been meeting for a couple of years. We began calling ourselves the chandeliers or the “chandeleers” as Ursula Vaira wrote recently, as we were used to meeting monthly at the Nanaimo Bakery which has many chandeliers – possibly twenty or so.

Kim Clark and I were planning to meet in January 2018 at the Nanaimo Bakery aka the German Bakery.   She thought it would be a good idea to invite other women writers to our coffee klatch and thus began our monthly gatherings at the bakery with the chandeliers, inviting other writers to join us as we went along.

We don’t have an agenda and our conversations range from local events, personal goings-on, and things happening farther afield although there’s not too much of the latter. If we had tried, we couldn’t have put together such an amazing group of writers who write in all genres. The photo above is of our book table at the Federation of B.C. Writers Spring W(Rites) Festival in Nanaimo in May 2019 with thanks to Darryl Knowles, Kim Clark’s partner, for creating a wondrous Chandelier Coffee Writers sign.

Kim Clark says our group is both “brilliant and eclectic (literarily and otherwise, lol).” She told me in a recent email that The STORYHIVE-funded pilot of Disease & Desire, a web series based on her book, A One-Handed Novel, is in post-production. Luckily, her co-producer, Sara McIntyre, filmed before the restrictions of the pandemic and editing is going ahead slowly.

“The world is weird, I haven’t been in a vehicle for months,” Kim says, “and I miss seeing the chandeleers. Swearing more, writing less and dreaming up ways to ‘be kind, BE CALM, and stay safe’, as Doctor Bonnie Henry would say.”

Here’s a link to my review of A One-Handed Novel  (Caitlin Press, 2018)  at Story Circle Book Reviews so you’ll get an idea of what a quirky character Melanie is.  She’s a gimp too, which is one of the ways Kim describes herself.

Photo of Kim Clark: Chris Hancock Donaldson

Photo of Kim Goldberg and Leanne McIntosh at the Federation of B.C. Writers’ Spring (W)Rites Festival in Nanaimo, May 2019.

Kim Goldberg has a new book, Devolution (Caitlin Press, 2020) which was going to be launched on March 21st, World Poetry Day, at the Harbourfront branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library. I’m sure most of the chandeleers would have been there, then going somewhere after for desserts and coffee or perhaps something stronger.

Devolution is a book of poems and fables about “planetary collapse” and the launch was cancelled due to a world pandemic!  While people missed the opportunity to buy a book in person, you can purchase books from an independent bookstore in your area or from the Caitlin Press website.

While Kim hasn’t had in-person launches and readings, she’s had good publicity for Devolution in the Nanaimo News Bulletin, on People First Radio,and online on the 49th Shelf’s Launchpad. And watch for an interview with her on All Lit Up. For  her “elevator pitch” on Launchpad, Kim said: “Devolution is a surreal and often absurd look at a world in collapse through poems and fables about ecopocalypse.” She worked on the collection for over ten years.

I appreciated her clever turns of phrase in “Caught Between the Devil” such as: “I was caught between the devil and your deep blue / seedpod with one foot in the gravitational / field of dreams basting that crooked stitch in twine . . . ”

Leanne McIntosh enjoys the conversation at the bakery she says. She’s currently working on a manuscript titled “Treasured Blue, Art in the time of pandemic,” co-authored with Mary Simmons, a geologist and jewellery maker who is from and of New Mexico. Mary will contribute prose and Leanne, the poetry.

It seems forever ago that I held a salon for Leanne in my living room to celebrate the publication of Dark Matter (Leaf Press, 2013), a book of poems that respond to the prose she chose “from thirty years of private correspondence, journals and articles” from the late Jack Sproule, her friend of many decades.

Lily Quan says she will be happy when she can roam around again. Lily submitted her manuscript, THE ONE AND ONLY ROSIE CHEN, to the Writing for Children Competition by CANSCAIP (Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers) and won! Winning entries and finalists were then submitted to publishers who have been contacting writers directly if they are interested. We look forward to updates which can be done by email but in person will be so much more fun.

Ursula Vaira published Leanne’s book mentioned above and she has published Kim Clark, Kim Goldberg and me! (My book of poetry, Fishing for Mermaids, was published in 2014.) Ursula has spent thirty years helping writers publish their words and find their audiences: first at Oolichan Books all through the nineties, then at Leaf Press, which she founded in 2000. In 2019 she became the managing editor of WordWorks, the magazine of the Federation of BC Writers.

Ursula says: “I’m happy to be a chandeleer! Even more now, when we are all stuck at home—I treasure these strong women.” And we treasure you Ursula.

Photo of Ursula Vaira: Chris Hancock Donaldson

Rachael Preston is “pushing on” with her novel writing in the midst of a pandemic. Her last novel, The Fishers of Paradise (Wolsak & Wynn, 2016), won the Kerry Schooley Book Award in 2013. The novel is set in 1930s’ Hamilton in the boathouse community along the shores of Dundas Marsh and it’s an excellent read. Rachael really captured the atmosphere of the time. Windowseat Books  in Nanaimo has copies of The Fishers of Paradise so you can arrange to pick up a copy there. Otherwise, you can order a copy through the Mulberry Bush (where Rachael worked part time when customers still visited the store.)

And did you know about Project Bookmark? There are plaques across the country known as bookmarks that make note of a particular book and author related to that place. You’ll see Rachael unveiling her plaque in Hamilton, Ontario at Bookmark #16.

Photo of Rachael Preston: Christian TW Photography

Bronwyn Berg  let us know in an email that “Growing Room festival will be publishing my work. I was supposed to be a panelist at their festival which was cancelled. It will be an old piece, most likely the story that was long listed for CBC a few years ago which I’ve never found a home for.”

And Bronwyn says: “I’m still only able to write a sentence or a paragraph (if I’m lucky) at a time and still unable to read although I’ve finally learned how to enjoy audiobooks.” Bronwyn is a disability advocate who is often interviewed. Here’s a link to an interview she did with CBC’s As It Happens about strangers “helping” without consent. 

Sonnet L’Abbé  finished the term with her VIU (Vancouver Island University) students online. She says: “All my creative writing students showed up to virtual classes to the end; I think it was helpful just to connect and talk about poetry, and to maintain a sense of normalcy. At least while we’re in isolation we can still learn!”

Sonnet ‘s book, Sonnet’s Shakespeare (McClelland & Stewart, 2019,) is on the shortlist for the 2020 Raymond Souster Award and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. It took Sonnet (whose first name is made up of her parents’ first names Jason and Janet) about seven years from “first attempts” to publication.

Alycia Pirmohamed in her review of Sonnet’s Shakespeare in the most recent issue of The Malahat Review, says: “L’Abbé ’s sonnets glimmer in their take-down of oppressive structures, vitalized by musicality and ingenuity – in both thematic and linguistic veins.”

Since March 19, 2020, Sonnet has been doing a poetry reading/music practice every night, live on Facebook. She says: “It really helps me mentally/emotionally to have the rhythmic/breathing practice of playing.” When I was in touch with Sonnet, she was up to “episode” 47.” Now she’s done 50!

Photo of Sonnet L’Abbé : Josef Jacobson, Nanaimo Daily News

Julie Chadwick is a journalist whose profiles in the Nanaimo Daily News (no longer published) I always looked forward to reading. Julie is at home now with three children including a new baby born in December.

She is the author of The Man Who Carried Cash (Dundurn, 2018), which I reviewed for the Vancouver Sun. Postmedia also ran it in the National Post and here’s the link if you’d like to read about it. Julie found out about the Nanaimo connection to Johnny Cash when she was entertainment editor at the Nanaimo Daily News. You can order a copy from your local independent bookstore as many of them are shipping books these days while they’re not open to the public.

Here’s a link to an article Julie wrote for The Walrus, published last year: “Are Breast Implants Making Women Sick?”

Debbie Marshall is the author of Firing Lines: Three Canadian Women Write the First World War (Dundurn Press, 2017) which had a beautiful and entertaining launch in Nanaimo. You can read my review which was published in the Vancouver Sun.

Debbie continues to write at her home on Gabriola Island which includes working on a play about a Canadian opera singer as well as writing a murder mystery. Debbie says: “I have also been using this COVID time to learn more about audio blogging and other technologies, such as photoshop premiere elements. For me, it’s been a time to stretch myself in new directions. I’ve enjoyed the solitude, but am now starting to miss connection.”

Photo of Debbie Marshall: Sheila Norgate

Lynda Archer is the newest member of the Chandeleers. She’s the author of Tears in the Grass (Dundurn Press, 2016) which was a Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. The synopsis for the novel says: “At ninety years of age, Elinor, a Saskatchewan Cree artist, inveterate roll-your-own smoker, and talker to rivers and stuffed bison, sets out to find something that was stolen almost a lifetime ago. With what little time she has left, she is determined to find the child taken from her after she, only a child herself, was raped at a residential school.”

The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission has included Tears in the Grass in its adult teaching resources which you can find here.

You can order a copy of Tears in the Grass From Strong Nations, an online store based in Nanaimo: strongnations.com

And what about me, you may ask? I’ve been communicating via email with thirteen women writers who are part of two Writing Life circles. The theme for the six-week circle is “A House in the Rain, an Umbrella in the Sun” which is from a Joy Harjo poem and I think it suits the practice of writing as a practice of self-compassion. I’ve been writing poetry, assembling a manuscript to send to a publisher, writing blogs and book reviews, and I put together a Flying Mermaids Catalogue, Playbook + Mini Memoir to celebrate twenty years of creativity shared by me and my partner Sarah Clark who designed the “mini memoir.” Sarah has also been designing individual poems of mine as well so I’ll have a package of six (rather than a chapbook) that will be called, let’s see . . . . .  “Words in Our Pockets.” I love to celebrate and promote writers and their work hence this blog called A Poet’s Nanaimo (apoetsnanaimo.ca).

Photo of Mary Ann Moore: Sarah Clark