Cultural critics Pauline Butling and Susan Rudy suggest that literary communities are equal to scientists’ laboratories: readings, performances, workshops, festivals and conferences are all “sites of research”–spaces where writers “can work together to explore new ideas and forms, assert new subject formations, and investigate alternative histories” (Writing in Our Time, 33).

The poet bpNichol similarly referred to his writing itself as “research”–and his performance in the sound-poetry group The Four Horsemen provides an example of how the public reading can be a site of radical formal investigation.

Post by Wayde Compton, Director of The Writer’s Studio.

Video courtesy of YouTube.

I just returned from the Big Island of Hawaii. Before I went, I had a few stories in mind.  I scoped out a few markets. Even wrote a query. Maybe I’ll just pop over, confirm a few things, talk to a few people and voilà, a blue Hawaii travel story and a few bucks. Bonus.

Then the sunshine hit me. Who was I kidding? I’m not going to scribble notes by pretending to care about the square ukulele. Where’s my pen? What was the name of that flower again? And that beach? Was it left or right at the stop sign?

So, if you’re going on a trip and you think, I’ll just write something, no problem, here’s a tip or two or five.

1. Plan ahead. Research. Get clear on ideas. Scope out your potential markets before you go.

2. Focus: Travel. Spas. Hotels. Weirdness? What will it be? Decide.

3. Set up interviews, if you can, prior to getting there to be efficient with time.

4. The best story will undoubtedly be the one you could only hear by being there.

5. Stay longer than six days. Especially if it’s still raining in Vancouver.

Post and photo by Gayle Mavor (TWS 2012). Find more of her work at http://www.gaylemavor.com.

Good history is more than a list of past events–it is more than “one damned thing after another.” Good history is about answering questions, making meaning, and explaining how and why things happened. It is about the past, but also about the present.

Ultimately, history is about understanding the human condition. If we consider a range of sources and perspectives, decide what the evidence means, add some context, and argue for a point of view, we can tell a truly meaningful story about the past. We may even convince readers to accept our views!

Don’t be surprised, however, if your own opinions change during the research and writing process.

Submitted by Eric Damer, educational historian, writer, and instructor of Writing Local History. For more about him, see http://ericdamer.wordpress.com.

Writing Local History runs March 10 to March 31, 2012 at SFU Harbour Centre. To register, or for more information, click here.

Photo (Hastings Sawmill School, 1886) courtesy of  City of Vancouver Archives.

So you saw a salmon leap last summer and it wants to play in your next piece of writing! But nothing you can get down on paper seems to quite catch the essence of watching it jump and feeling the twist of salmon muscle in your own gut. The problem might be a lack of knowledge. Get a video on the salmon life cycle; talk to a worker at a salmon hatchery; search out literature about coho, sockeye, and other local species. Somewhere in there will be the thing that goes oh!, and, later, your work will jump with the energy you’ve been given because you respected salmon (and your writing) enough to get the facts.

Post by Carol Shillibeer (TWS 2012), who is old enough to know better but often doesn’t. Take, for example, her desire to write poetry. Find her at http://tailfeather.ca.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.