A sketch of "Fort" by Rhya Tamasauskas for a creature collaboration.

I love the solitary nature of writing. I love that I can do it anywhere at any time and only have to count on myself to show up, but late last year, I was chatting a theatre director, and realized how much I miss that collective creative “aha” moments. It’s really not the same giving myself a high-five at the coffee shop at 7 in the morning…

And somehow, after this revelation, I started sending and receiving emails from all sorts of inspiring folks. And all of a sudden, collaborations started happening left right and centre!

I headed to Saskatchewan to work on the script and source text for Shannon Litzenberger’s dance piece, HOMEbody (premiering in Toronto in September) and came back to Toronto and started working on Sylvie Bouchard’s incredible piece, Histoire d’Amour  (that goes up in May). Man, I love the writing-dance process!!

I’m going to be turning Christa Couture’s lyrics into limited edition books for her Indigogo supporters and Rhya Tamasauskas and I started playing with her whimsical creatures and some wee poems for a submission to a brilliant online mag (The sketch at the top is from this creature-collaboration).  Mark Freeman and I have started a wonderfully inspiring brainstorm for a project. We have no idea what’s happening with it and where it’s going, but something grand is afoot!

And there’re even more projects on the go – an arts education one, some book making workshops…and some grand Love Lettering Projects dream-ups…!

High FIVE! I hereby deem 2012 the year of collaboration.

~

A glimpse of the collaboration between Rhya and me:

Another gem by Rhya Tamasauskas.

A letter from Rhya, stamps from Jaime

I love writing letters.

I joke that I spend a third of my income on postage, and it’s only a slight exaggeration. I think differently when I write letters. I think things through, I problem solve, especially when it comes to novel-writing conundrums.

And I love the whole process of letter writing — the time capsule-ness of the whole endeavor. The days and days it inevitable takes between putting pen to paper and when it arrives in a far away (or not-so-far away) mailbox. Nothing about it is instantaneous.

The every crafty Rhya is the master of inventive enveloped creations, and Susan has been known to send gourds in the mail (and most recently, bacon-flavoured lip balm…ahem). Christa sends packages that take my breath away. Jaime has the most lovely stamps for each envelope and hulagirl always adds such treats to her packages…

And then there are the non-blogging letter-ers, Emily, who makes such pretty envelopes I have a wall of them hanging in my kitchen, Jess, the master of knitted packages, Jada who sends notes all the way from New Zealand (often filled with paper from India!) and my mom, even though she lives not far away at all…

I definitely write more letters than I receive, but there is still something so wonderful about the daily potential of a full mailbox…When I was away in Saskatchewan for most of January, I missed the ritual of getting home and opening the loud, clanky mailbox to see if there’s a little something waiting for me…

So imagine my excitement when I found out about the Hand Written Letter Project (through Gillian Sze’s lovely blog!) Brilliant brilliant brilliant.

One more excuse to get letter-ing!

Fact: Everybody has a brain.

And the incredible Mark Freeman and his compatriots, started a great blog to open up the dialogue around personal mental health.

About the project:

When everybody can see and hear how we all share similar struggles with our brains, we can break down the stigma around openly discussing mental health issues. And when we can openly discuss mental health issues, we can be proactive, we can prevent problems from developing or getting worse, and we can stop a lot of the unnecessary pain, suffering, and loss that characterizes our current, secretive, and unhealthy approach to mental health in our society.

We’re passionate about creating opportunities for dialogue around mental health because it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s nothing to feel alone and isolated about. We need to quit pretending that mental health is something unusual and different. That’s like stigmatizing people for breathing oxygen. Everybody has mental health, because everybody has a brain. Spread the word. Share your brain.  

Hells yah!

I wrote a wee somethin’ about being loveable during their relationship-pre-Valentine’s-Day posts. You can check it out here…

I took a photo from a railcar in Saskatchewan and turned it into a postcard

I had to wait until Canada Post worked its Valentine’s Day magic, but ta-da: my guest post on The Paper Place blog on making love-filled papery creations (and who says they have to be just for Valentine’s Day??)

And the (gluten-free) apple pie was a hit! Deemed the best gluten-free pie yet. Weeeeeee! Who needs chocolate and flowers when you’ve got apple pie?! That and this tune that inspired the pop-up card…

Lattice tops are infinitely trickier sans gluten...

Glory be! My writing has been published in the newest edition of The Lampeter Review! And what an incredible issue to be included in. I am thrilled to bits.

Also, the timing of its release was perfect as it came out while I was wandering about in Saskatchewan, (which is what the published work is based on…!)

The Grade 10 and 11 drama students at Yorkton Regional High School

I’m just back from a three-week creation and teaching residency in Yorkton, Saskatchewan with dancer/choreographer Shannon Litzenberger (who was born and raised out in Rider-land). It was an intense, and wonderful three weeks, where we focused on the idea of “home” for her upcoming show, HOMEbody.

A fascinating thing, home…

I spent a lot of time wandering around abandoned farm houses, and sitting around the kitchen table at Shannon’s family farm, interviewing her dad about the history of their home, and chatting with Shannon about what made up (and makes up) her home. From there, I wrote and wrote in her voice, (which is a strange and wonderful exercise!) and ended up with 50+ poems (!!) for the HOMEbody project.

It was interesting thinking about my home, when I was 2547 km away from it…

And layered onto all of that, we were teaching high school drama students a creative process that mirrored our own — integrating writing and movement and sound and dance. Man alive, I love teaching. Especially high school students!!

Home, as defined by 16 and 17-year-olds, is more fascinating than I ever would’ve thought. They dove into the work, even though much of what we were doing was pretty unfamiliar. (You can see glimpses of our work, and hear what the students thought of the project here!)

And then, they got up on stage and performed their work. They took to the stage with such confidence and presence. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

More highlights of my prairie adventures:

- the endless skies (and skies and skies…)
- wandering about in -48 degree cold
- chatting weather with the old-timers at the pool
- realizing when the students kept saying they liked “quading” they meant ATV-ing, not doing squats with their families
- spinning Billy Joel records at a gem of a coffee shop — it’s an old house, complete with cozy couch-filled reading rooms, and a music room!
- daily 2pm dance parties on stage. Is there anything better than dancing with dancers??