Feature.

 

 

By Sharon Miki,
Editor in Chief

he life of the

professional writer
isn’t always as romantic
or glamorous as cable
television might have you
believe; most working
writers live a life of
constant struggle between
creativity and financial
stability, rejection and
elation, and writing and
working. Finding this
balance can be a delicate
juggling act, which makes
John Vigna’s journey from
Douglas College student to
working writer to teacher
to published author—often
simultaneously—all the
more impressive.

Vigna, a graduate of the
Print Futures: Professional
Writing program and
current Douglas College
12

mid

instructor, released his
debut book of short fiction,
Bull Head, this month. The
Other Press sat down with
Vigna to talk about Bull
Head, writing, and his print
past and future.

Print Futures graduate turned teacher, and recent author of ‘Bull Head,’ John Vigna

wife’s property, an alcoholic
two-step aficionado visiting
his brother in prison, a
physically abused husband,
and elderly brothers
clinging to their old ways.
“What interested me

this other undercurrent of
things that go on, and I was
particularly curious about
this in very predominantly
male environments where
they’re tied to natural
resources.”

Accordingly, the world
of Bull Head is rough on the
men that live in it—and
their dissatisfaction emerges
physically.

“Tn the world I created,
one of the ways the men
respond to this is with
violence, because they’re
frustrated, they don’t know
how else to get through
this. They try to make
decisions that they think
are going to be better for
them, but they end up being
horrible decisions that lead
to terrible situations that
can often be very violent or
very dark...I wanted to see
how these characters, put
through this type of setting,

! know the college environment and what expectations
students bring to the table, and | have experiences in both
of those worlds that often cross over. Its great to be able to
connect to students, or try to with that kind of background.

Bull Head

Bull Head tells eight stories
of men trapped by their
environment, landscape,
and choices. Set in the
1980s and late-1990s in

a fictionalized mountain
town, Bull Head explores

a variety of unique yet
distinctly masculine points
of view—a divorced pit bull
breeder living on his ex-

when I was starting with
these characters was sort of
the emasculation that men
are encountering now,”
Vigna said. “This is not a
response, saying that people
should take notice and
“woe is guys’...but there’s
been such a big shift in
society, and real growth for
the positive, but [with that
shift] it means that there’s

how they would respond
and to me, this was one
response.”

While the book has
already received positive
reviews from the National
Post, the Globe and Mail, and
the Vancouver Sun, Vigna
noted that the process of
writing and publishing Bull
Head was a long one—and
began its infancy at Douglas

College.

“Some of these stories
I had the genesis of...while
I was in the Print Futures
program. And another
story, the whisperings of
it, started in that...so that
would have been in 2001.
Those stories, of course,
have changed remarkably.
They’re not even the same
beasts, but they started
there.”

From print to the future
Vigna graduated from the
two-year Print Futures
diploma program in 2001,
which he took as a means of
acquiring the skills to build
a career as a writer.

“T didn’t want to end
up in the place I already
was, which was educated
but with no job-ready
skills really, so I had to
make that hard decision,”
Vigna explained. “When
I looked into the Print
Futures program, I talked to
previous students and I had
no idea there was all this
other sort of professional
writing going on out there,
and when I learned that
was the case | thought, ‘you
know, I can do this and find
the way to make the time to
do my own writing.’””

After Print Futures,
Vigna applied his skills to
a career as a copywriter
before returning to school
once more—completing his
master’s degree in Creative
Writing at UBC.

While still balancing his
work as a copywriter and