I.F.O.A. Day the First – Part Two

In which our fearless heroines Ragdoll and Zesty fight the wily and malevolent forces of interminable discussion.

With eight minutes to spare, Ragdoll and I made a frantic dash across the Harbourfront parking lot [in lashing rain of course] from Queen’s Quay to York Quay for our next session, a Roundtable Discussion.

Ragdoll was somewhat disappointed in this state of affairs as she was hankering for some French fries and was starting to come to the uncomfortable conclusion that the decaf latte she had ordered at breakfast was in fact nothing of the kind. Oy. Da jittahs. Da fever Romanship!

If it were not bad enough that she was somewhat unwell and denied the small, albeit sacred pleasure of a good frite, we had to endure a roundtable discussion that has probably succeeded in discouraging me from ever attending another one at the I.F.O.A.

I attended a roundtable last year and having checked realize that I didn’t even bother to blog about it. Nor can I remember the subject matter. Having thought on the subject of roundtables a bit more, I’ve determined that my problems with them are essentially as follows:

If you don’t have a good moderator, i.e. one interested in guiding the structure of a discussion instead of just hearing everyone including themselves talk, it’s essentially the kiss of death.

It’s my personal preference, but I’ve realized that to a great degree I'm not that concerned about what writers think in the sense that listening to a group of them warble on, as opposed to an interview with one of them, just isn't that interesting. I care about what writers write, not necessarily their discussions and opinions on how best to write, or the war in Iraq or the validity of blue paint versus green paint for the walls of a writing room.

The topic(s) for discussion will inevitably be far too broad to be discussed in any real manner within an hour. Nuff said.

Case in point, the roundtable Ragdoll and I attended was with Nicole Krauss [A History of Love], Colson Whitehead [The Collosus of New York], Deborah Eisenberg [Twilight of Superheroes] and was moderated by David Eddie [Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay At Home Dad].

The topic? Fiction versus Non-Fiction.

Sigh.

First of all as Ragdoll points out, didn’t we all cover this issue ad naseum earlier in the year with the whole James Frey debacle? Enough already.

Secondly, I don’t want to hear a bunch of fiction writers’ talk about non-fiction and what defines it. Semantics are interesting to mentally churn, but not an especially interesting topic for an observed discussion.

I felt for the moderator in that he was obviously a bit nervous, but there was no guidance provided for the discussion at all. It was a plodding mess that covered such general topics as 9/11, the nature of inspiration, and “does writing make a difference in the world?” And that was before we got into the questions [some of them ridiculous] from the audience.

At one point a woman asked if the writers ever worried about hurting their readers' feelings. It was all I could do not to stand up, unleash my inner Yazmar and declare that woman "a damn fool" to one and all.

I would say that overall, Nicole Krauss and Colson Whitehead were my favourite panelists. I admired Ms. Krauss because she was asked about how it is to live with another writer, her husband Jonathan Safran Foer and she refused to answer. It’s redundant. Do the male spouses of female writers get asked the same question? I doubt it. Zadie Smith probably has to endure the same nonsense.

I also really liked Colson Whitehead because he was not only very humourous throughout the discussion but when he was asked about the “vast freedom” writers enjoy in this part of the world, he said it was a question he wasn’t sure he could or should address because “As a black writer, would I have even been here 20 years ago?” Right freakin’ on Colson.

I love it when people just call the numbers on the crap metre, know what I mean jellybeans?

The discussion was mercifully over in about an hour at which time Ragdoll and I were able to finally obtain sustenance after discovering that that French fries were not in Queen’s Quay, but were in fact in York Quay where we had just been. We got large orders since we’d burned off so many calories with our double parking lot mambos.

Up Next: Bridge over Untroubled Waters. Susan G. Coles executes a skillful interview with the author of The Night Watch, redeeming my faith somewhat in the concept of hearing writers talk instead of read.