Marion Agnew

Back in September, I mentioned adding a Fitbit into my life and said I'd talk about it some other time . This, apparently, is that time. First, what it is: A Fitbit (like several other brands of sportswatch, I'm assuming) gives you data. It can track steps and types of exercise, as well as specific exercise sessions. The distance you've gone. How much you weigh, how many calories you have burned or should burn based on a goal weight, how restful your sleep was, how mindful you've been (based on their own meditations), and a bunch of other stuff.  A caveat: the data isn't even necessarily especially accurate. I mean, we've all heard stories of people clocking steps while lifting a wineglass, right? So here's a thing: I'm not in training for anything. Other than life, I guess. Sure, I've competed as a swimmer, runner, and triathlete (though not very competitively, if you know what I mean), and I've tried and obsessed over various methods of improvi...

 Hi, folks!  November whizzed past in a blur of literary events, and I loved every minute of it. From waking up on my birthday in Wawa, Ontario and being serenaded that evening at Wordstock Sudbury by three former Poets Laureate of Sudbury in the evening, to sitting on a panel with a hugely gifted and influential poet to discuss grief, AND, back home, attending a book club to talk nuts and bolts of character and reality vs. fiction, AND speaking to a ladies' luncheon group, AND reading online for the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop, AND a bunch of other events, it's been a wild ride. (from top): Vera Constantineau, Kim Fahner, and Roger Nash after their serenade. My view at Wordstock, Sudbury's Literary Festival, just before my panel, "Good Grief," began. Lots of fun! November also brought  my first new publication in a while , at Five Minutes ( fiveminutelit.com ). The short essay (100 words EXACTLY about a five-minute life episode)  "See/Be Seen"...

Exciting events in early November! November 1 from 2 to 3 PM, I'm in conversation with David Giuliano at the Marathon Public Library. The event is free and open to the public. Come and ask questions about truth and fiction, perseverance, northern Ontario stories--anything you like! David is the author of THE UNDERTAKING OF BILLY BUFFONE, released in 2021 by Latitude 46 Publishing. You can find out more about him here: davidgiuliano.ca . The 10th Wordstock Literary Festival runs from November 2 through 4, in Sudbury--and online! Find a link to the schedule-at-a-glance here . The event begins Thursday at 5:30 PM, with a poetry primer, followed by the festival kickoff event at 7. Events Friday begin at 6 PM and run all day on Saturday. Master Classes on humour and adapting material from one form to another kick off Saturday morning at 9, followed by festival panels and readings and culminating in the evening's gala celebration. I'm on a panel entitled "Good Grief" wi...

Over the last year or so I've been posting thoughts about what I learned or experienced in a particular month and what I'll try to carry forward from that experience. Subject to external pressures, of course. People visiting. Deadlines. Being immersed in living instead of reflecting on it. My novel has debuted, and I have a few events coming up. I'm editing a novel, revising another one, and writing on a new project that's stretching me in exciting ways.  So the two things I'm holding throughout the rest of the year: gratitude and space. My book filling a table at our local independent bookstore. Me, back home after the launch, exhausted and happy, with flowers from my family. As if filling a table in the bookstore weren't enough, this is my book IN THE WINDOW with the new release by Jean E. Pendziwol     The birch on a recent golden morning. It has fewer leaves now. Some days, the sky and the clouds  are beyond words. Yet I still try. Gratitude because I had th...

MAKING UP THE GODS launched on Sunday! Here's just a little of the gratitude I expressed that day at Thunder Bay's independent bookstore, Entershine Bookshop. I feel more grateful every day for the support and the opportunity to share this story with readers.  Thank you so much for being here with me today.   The view from the audience at Entershine Bookshop To start, I acknowledge as a grateful guest that I live and write on lands of Anishinaabe and Metis peoples, in Robinson-Superior treaty territory, and I am reckoning with my family’s settler roots.   Making Up the Gods is the first novel I’ve finished, but it’s not the first one I started. I worked on three other novels, even starting a new one after I’d tried imagining my way through this book. Making Up the Gods itself has felt like several novels along the way. BUT this, at last, is the story that kept bringing me back to the page for a dozen years, through many versions. In fact, the work continued until ...

Hello, everyone! My novel, MAKING UP THE GODS, is launching at Entershine Bookshop (196 Algoma Street S, Thunder Bay, Ontario) on Sunday, October 15, from 1 to 3. A recent glorious morning, with the birch tree's golden leaves lit by the rising sun Here's what you can expect:  Doors open at 12:30 There will likely be cookies and coffee You could also buy a copy of the book The event proper will get underway about 1 Someone will introduce me I'll thank everybody I ever met and some I haven't (kidding but also not) I'll read from my new novel (exciting!!) I'll answer questions (ask me about the cover!) I'll be available to sign books until 3 but you don't have to stay that long At some point I'll draw a name to receive the gift basket of Entershine goodies (items appropriate to this novel and also in general to stories from the north!) We all go to our homes, individually, and read.  I am so incredibly grateful for the official support I've received...

  People have said nice things about my debut novel ahead of its official launch on October 15. It's humbling and I'm so grateful to everyone who's had a hand in helping this story reach readers.   It's available for preorder wherever books are sold, both brick-and-mortar locations and online.  Here's a suggestion: Perhaps ask your local independent bookstore to order it--and if you don't have a local independent bookstore, check out Bookshop.org, where your online purchases support independent bookstores. They even have an agreement with All Lit Up, a consortium of Canadian Independent Publishers !  And yes! It's also available to order from the large chain bookstores in both the US and Canada.  PRAISE FOR MAKING UP THE GODS Full of humour and heart, Marion Agnew’s debut novel is both a love letter to northern Ontario, and a moving meditation on grief, community, and family—the one we are born with, and the one we choose. No matter where you are in the wo...

A Fitbit. I’m learning a lot, which I’ll talk more about at some future time. But let’s just say I respond well to step counts. A proofed manuscript and cover of my novel, Making Up the Gods, which launches in one month!* A new refrigerator, plus a bar fridge that served in the pinch between a fridge on the fritz, a fridge that we ordered and paid for that never arrived, and at last a fridge that was delivered. A reduced need to worry about the house’s plumbing! Our septic tank is freshly pumped. Because we know how to have all the fun here, folks. (There’s more fun ahead, as is the way with household projects.) A month’s worth of memories with my sister, who helped proof my book and helped me pick up spices from Penzey’s in Minneapolis (not as easy as it sounds; those places smell great and hold the possibilities for a million meals). We’d seen each other briefly a year ago, but she hasn’t come up here for four years. It was great to have her here. A sense of possibility, a stirring o...

Breathe Cry Breathe, by Catherine Gourdier The subtitle of this memoir is “From Sorrow to Strength in the Aftermath of Sudden Tragic Loss,” and it’s an apt description. In a very short time, Catherine Gourdier unexpectedly lost her mother and her youngest sister in a traffic accident, and her father died of a broken heart a few months later. These are the kind of losses that prompt innumerable questions, perhaps especially “why?” Everyone affected by the death may answer those questions differently. Certainly each of Catherine’s siblings coped with their losses in different ways. If you’ve ever felt unmoored after a loved one’s death, reading this book will help you see that there is no one way, no right way, to grieve—there’s only your way.

This year, August had so many rainy days that was easy to forget the sunny ones. Which isn’t a bad thing. Rainy days aren’t doomed to be bad days. No need to assign value judgments.  Especially because rainy days fill the well, the physical one from which we draw water for the house. In theory, I want to have the flexibility of spirit to leave my desk and play outdoors on “nice weather” days and leave indoor tasks for “bad weather” days. This summer, practice has shown me something different. Sailboat Races! I like my work, my indoor work, the writing stuff. I like it enough to miss being outdoors on sunny days—to skip the activities I could be doing—in favour of taking my last look at the interior of my forthcoming novel and then creating some draft marketing materials. I like finishing things, and meeting deadlines, and always (always, always) trying to exceed expectations—others’ and my own. It doesn’t feel like work. It feels like being myself. I also feel like myself when I’m ...

Here's how August has been, so far. Refrigerator thermometers and hopeful ignorance, the old lie: “I think it’s getting better.” Tying up many projects at once, tech support calls and coaching (“say this”) and revisions. New ideas simmering gently in the background. Fresh Ontario peaches in bowl rimmed in stripes of a summer day: the sky’s clear blue, the sun’s mid morning gold, and the green of mature birch leaves. Realistic purchases on unrealistic timelines. Stopgap measures, making do, gratitude for the ability to buy a temporary fix at a hardware store. A dry well, and other season-based solutions. Planning for future delights. A trip into new/old/familiar territory, reuniting with family. A side quest to explore a world of spice, special mixes for future delights. Return, but on a different schedule. Moments bottling the new ideas that have simmered for weeks. Afternoon snacks at Pleasant Time. Scheduled deliveries, more customer service conversations. A new refrigerator—new ...

Here are some (not all!) of the books I've read in recent months. This crop is so interesting and rewarding to read. Your mileage, as the saying goes, may vary. How High We Go in the Dark,  Sequoia Nagamatsu     “But my parents are telling me stories about a simpler life that I never knew, the kind where you could go to the beach and not worry about the sand or the city beyond it being swallowed by the sea, one where an earthquake never took away my father’s job and we still woke up on a tiny street in a quiet neighbourhood in a bustling metropolis where everyone grew old together.” This book is set in the near future, when scientists researching in Siberia find the body of a young girl in melting permafrost and thaw it out, thereby unleash a virus on the world. Imagine trying to sell that novel during the pandemic, which is what Nagamatsu did. And I’m glad!   The book ranges widely, beginning with the scientists and their backgrounds and continuing through a...