Solitude

Solitude is a luxury these days, I think. Try to sit fifteen minutes in a quiet place without any interruptions. (Time it!)

It is not only writers who occasionally need quiet surroundings. Sometimes being close to nature ~ a walk in the country, a few moments along a river bank or, if you can arrange it, sitting in the garden gives one a new perspective.

Photos: by Lorna ~ The Carousel Bed and Breakfast, Cayuga, Ontario

Click on photo to view larger.

Shiko's Dance for Peace Photos: Shiko
We wish you strength Shiko. We wish you health.

Shiko

Our Friend & Follower

Shiko. Reiki by Shiko

Photos: Reiki by Shiko

To beautiful Shiko ~ Peace and Love from beautiful Cayuga-On-The-Grand.

Photos: lbwalker

Doors Open Haldimand

This year, Doors Open Haldimand, focuses on the "history and heritage of the area's fertile fields." The buildings, museums and organizations reflect the active agricultural community.

On Saturday, September 19, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Haldimand County will open its doors in customary, friendly fashion.

For a complete list of participating sites and local maps, go to http://www.doorsopenontario.on.ca/ Visit the Haldimand County Photo Album. For more information, contact Catherine Stidsen catherine.stidsen@hwcn.org Telephone: 905-772-3790.

Photograph: Linda welcomes visitors to Grand Treats and Treasures on Cayuga St., downtown Cayuga-on-the-Grand.

Photos: by Lorna

Childhoods of Writers

A young man -- taller than the bookshelves -- declares that he has "never read a book." He seems proud.
In Negotiating With the Dead* -- a series of lectures on writing -- Margaret Atwood muses that the childhoods of writers often contain "books and solitude."
"There were no films or theatres in the North, and the radio didn't work very well," she writes. "But there were always books." Her mother liked quietness in children, and "a child who is reading is very quiet." Atwood read everything she could get her hands on.

We don't know whether the young man in our store had books while growing up. We do know that when he had a book report to write, he had his mother do it for him. He told us that. We expressed shock and did our best to lure him into reading. Someday, perhaps something in our store window or more likely someone of influence will lure him back.

*Margaret Atwood, Negotiating With the Dead, A Writer on Writing, Cambridge, 2002, p 7.

Photos: by Lorna. Click on photo to view larger.

Words of Wisdom on Writing

If we were asked what our biggest surprise has been in the used book business, it would have to be the number of published local writers there are. Poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction. The arrival of self-publishing has made much possible.

The great short-story writer, Mavis Gallant, said, "I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist. If it is child's play, an extension of make believe -- something one is frequently assured by people who write about writing -- how to account for the overriding wish to do that, just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a bicycle over the Alps?"*
Gallant was once asked, "Yes, but what do you really do?" ~ A question which she concludes expresses an adult opinion. She then surmises, "Perhaps a writer is, in fact, a child in disguise, with a child's lucid view of grown-ups, accurate as to atmosphere, improvising when it tries to make sense of adult behavior."

Whatever the aspiration to be an author, we encourage and love our local writers.

*Mavis Gallant, Preface, Selected Stories, McClelland & Stewart, 1996

Photos: by Lorna