F The Other Press It's Maaic! Isabel Huggan Speaks to DC Students Isabel Huggan is a short story writer who was recently in town for the Vancouver Writers Festival. Originally from Ontario, she now lives in the Philippines with her husband and daughter. While in town she stopped by Douglas College to have a chat with students about her book, The Elizabeth Stories, and about what she considers to be the magical act of writing. Huggan believes that the act of writing is intuitive. Your subconscious speak’s through your writing even though you yourself may not fully understand what you are writing about. Giving a personal example, Huggan spoke about the difficulty she had writing the end to her short story Into the Green Stillness. She had written most of the story, yet it somehow remained unfinished in her mind. Setting it aside for a while, she relaxed by consuming what she said was a very large amount of scotch and then falling asleep. While she slept she dreamt of an experience that one of her friends had told her about when she was a child. Curious as to why she had dreamt about that particular incident, she realized the dream was the answer to her problem and it became the end of her story. The information had somehow remained buried for so long ,yet it came when she needed it. Huggan feels that what you want to say is there if you just allow yourself to relax so that the expression comes out freely. Huggan also spoke about the relationship between writer and reader. She believes writers should trust that their readers will know what they are talking about. “With each successive draft of a story you clean it up so your work is bright... The act of concentration in- volved in writing imbues the language with meaning, it is an act of will. Imbue it with intensity and it will sing for you long after you are gone.” Huggan’s advice for beginning writers is to “Send your work out. It may just come right back but the act of send- ing it is a learning and motivating expe- rience in itself.” EXCERPT FROM THE ELIZA- BETH STORIES Celia Behind Me We slid down the snowy slope at the mouth of the pipe that seemed im- mense then but was really only five feet in diameter. Part of its attraction was the tremendous racket you could make by scraping a stick along the corrugated sides as you went through. It was also long enough to echo very nicely if you made good booming noises, and we occasionally titillated each other by saying bad words at one end that grew as they bounced along the pipe and became wonderfully shocking in their magnitude...poopy, Poopy, POOpy, POOOOPy, POOOOPPYYY! Literature Alive Carol Windley, Friday November 18, 10 am Room 3343 Boardwalk 182 Col nabie Street Dilliards ae’ 527-8819 Plow Open!!! Visit our new premises and enjoy the biggest and best Billiard Hall and Table Tennis facility in the Country! Food, Beverages, Pool, Darts, Ping-Pong, Foosball, and other Games! This promotion is not valid with any other discount offer. The Man Be- hind The Rub- ber Mask Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn es- tablishes his main themes early in this book. In the first twenty pages we recog- nize that he is going to talk about 1) Himself. 2) His penis. 3)Irony. 4)Other people’s penises, and 5) Red Dwarf. Not necessarilly in that order. The Man Behind the Rubber Mask is a pseudo- autobiographical book by Robert Llewellyn, who plays Kryton on the Brit- com, Red Dwarf. Llewellyn, an established British stand up comedian and playwrite has recently taken up writing as a means to exploit the masses. No, that’s cruel, but it’s hard to get past the self interested, almost self pitying tone that this book has at times. “Oh woe is me,” Llewellyn seems to be saying. “For I suffer the inglories of prostetic makeup. Woe, my cruel fate, for I am the only Red Dwarf star who’s face is not seen.” Still, this is not a book without its moments. Like many British comedy writers, Llewellyn is at his best when poking fun at British sexual mores and class barriers; he uses some great meta- phors (lower tummy bannana? Stiffy? © Evelyn Lau 3ERT LLEWELLYN 43 WARF ners Hilarious!). One moment stands out above all others. During the fifth season of the show, Llewellyn was hired to play Kryten in an American version of Red Dwarf. None of the other cast members were hired. After working an entire season without telling the other cast members about the job (the producers, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor thought it best not to inform the cast and crew about the deal in America), Llewellyn broke down and cried at the end.of the last day Evelyn Lau: Poetry and Prose It is 3:00 AM and I have been to one of the Writers’ Festival readings earlier this evening. It was a good experience, except for the large caffe mocha I drank afterwards - hence this early morning commentary. Evelyn Lau is the writer who I saw earlier; I saw her and I heard her - Wow! Vivid images of everything she described came to my mind when she stood up in front of about 60 people and read from her collections of both short stories and poetry. Last night was the first time that I had a chance to attend one of her readings and I hope that it is not the last. After reading two of her other books, Runaway and You Are Not Who You The Pearl Fishers Queen Elizabeth Theatre Claim, | picked up two more books called November 16, 199 of filming. This is not a book for your avera joe. But for fans of the series this is, Kryten himself would say, "O copacetic piece of liturature.” -Trent Ernst Jurassic Park / A Case q Need Michael Crichton The steamy sweat of the jungle pressq around you, the giant trees tower above li silent giants. You are the only person arou but you are not alone, the sounds of an mals and insects makes the jungle aliv Suddenly you hear and feel a heavy teal on your back. Slowly you turn to look anj find yourself face to snout with velociraptor. Welcome to Jurassic Park - the book. Illegal abortion by a respected doctor gon! wrong or a drug related blackmail deal John Berry must find out to save his frien| and collegue before it’s too late. A Cag of Need is complete with footnotes an appendices to explain the medical jargo and to give some insight into the high streg life of a doctor trying to solve a murder. 3 Michael Crichton, who also writes 4 Jeffery Hudson, has written many compe ling books, some of which have been mad into hit movies. Who can forget T Andromeda Strain and Rising Sun? So: of his lesser known books are Congo, Terminal Man and Eaters of the Dea Crichton always provides a good read an is at the top of my reading list. -Holly Keyes| Oedipus Dreams and her latest, Fre. Girls. 1 look forward to reading the ones too. At first very sistobiosiphicat writing style is changing. According Lau, she is writing more external rather than writing from dire experience and she is writing more a more prose. Prose fiction is not an eas transition from poetry, but her n project is indeed another collection short stories. Not everyone has the ability ort! strength to go through what Evelyn a did as an adolescent and survive - a life, sexual abuse - see Runaway) sh does. For a young writer (she’s 24) La has quite a number of published work under her belt so I’m sure that she’ Il t a heavyweight before her writing care¢ is over. -Tammy Coombs The Pearl Fishers stars soprano ie Fortine Leila, t enor Paul Cree as Nadir, and baritone | Chitsioples incre as Zurga, all of whom are making their debuts with this performance. Maestro Mario peat described as one of cna most gel conductors, will lead the orchestra.