How/why did you start to write?
My earliest memory of writing was before I
really had a grasp of the alphabet. I recall writing on the backs of discarded
envelopes and composing my own stories about Peter Pan and the Cisco Kid. The writing
was mere scribbles. Later in middle school I began writing poetry.
Unfortunately in grade seven a teacher accused me of handing in a poem that my
mother had written. I should have taken this as a complement but rather closed
myself off after such an accusation. During high school I was writing all the
time but keeping it to myself, as well as reading everything I could that
interested me.
I was fortunate to have two mentors in
university, one was Margaret Avison, who twice won Canada's
Governor General's Award and has also won its Griffin Poetry Prize. The other was Margaret Aitkin. During that
time both these mentors opened up their offices for informal discussions and
the writing of poetry. Also I was
encouraged to publish my work and a number of poems were published in the
University of Toronto anthology publications.
Why I
started to write is a mystery. Probably I can saw it was a means of exploring
possibilities.
How did you become an author?
I would say as soon as I started writing, I
considered myself an author. During my university years I was published and
that made me feel I was a writer. However I pursued a career in teaching at the
secondary and senior school levels, and although I continued to write, I had
little time to pursue an active marketing campaign to publish a lot of my work.
Nearer the end of my teaching career, I began publishing my work and for the
last 18 years I have been published in many on-line and print journals as well
as anthologies and my own collections.
What was your first published piece?
Probably the first published poem is “If”.
It is a love poem to my first wife. Miraculously enough it was the first poem
that I received a royalty cheque, ( $5.00 in 1979) since a Toronto composer
used a few lines of my poem along with lines by Irving Layton for lyrics in a
performed composition called Ex Tenebris.
Where was it published?
“If” was published in in complete by C.E. University of Toronto
How long ago?
1970
What did you do before embarking on your
writing career? Was it an asset to your writing? How?
As I mentioned my main career was in
education, where I taught primarily English, English Literature and Creative Writing. Obviously the content and the process of teaching others to write and
work with text kept me always in a mode close to the written word. However I
have worked as a baker, bartender, waiter, factory worker, ski instructor, and
travelled. All of these experiences provide the raw material for my writing.
Basically I see myself mining the sediment of my life, the newly deposited
particles of current every day and also the deep layers that have been laid
down over time.
What inspires you?
Life inspires me. I live in a location that
is remote from large cities. I can walk outside my door, take the dogs for a
run in the bush, go down to the sea, stare up at the mountains that sit across
the strait to the mainland or look at the peaks of the mountains that from the
ridge that runs the length of Vancouver Island. I am always active, whether it
is writing, gardening, hiking and playing sports. People inspire me and I with
my small publishing company and with the spoken word event, WordStorm, that I
co-founded and run monthly out of Nanimo, I feel I am paying it forward, giving
aspiring and established writers an opportunity to share their work either on
the page, the computer screen or on the stage. That’s what inspires me.
Please share one of your successful author
platform building technique
I am currently working on a crime noir
novel and will either self-publish or use a traditional trade publisher to
present my book to the world. That will be a different experience than
marketing poetry, since poetry is such a small segment of what people read
these days. In terms of poetry, I believe, the live performance, either as a
reading from a collection or as a spoken word, no paper, presentation is the
best and most entertaining way to market my art. I enjoy the live audience. That
is where you connect your words to individuals. Otherwise, it is also a good
idea to have a web site, possibly a blog if you have the time and regiment to
do so. Joining writers organizations is also a good idea. I belong to the
Federation of BC Writers and in the past have served as a Rep for the Vancouver
Island Region. I also belong to the League of Canadian Poets and receive
funding for readings through being a member. I find that the more I do to help
others, the more comes back to me in terms of author platform building.
Parting words
My writing comes from a process of accumulating
sediment. Experience, imagination, truth and lies are laid down over time in
layers and these layers are compressed by the weight of living. These are the
strata that I mine to hone my craft.
Each moment in a day inspires me. However it is
so hard to stay in the moment when the past, with its boxes of overlapping
memory, beckons me to mine the sediment of my life, and of course when the
future teases me with expectation and prediction. I find true joy when I can
smash the moment, and be attentive to what is happening. It is then that I am a
witness and an inspired observer on this fleeting journey. Perhaps it is then
that a small round pebble on a beach will catch my eye and I will roll it along
the tips of my fingers in meditative silence, before I stow it away in the
depths of a pocket.
Links
David Fraser
Writer, Poet, Spoken Word Performer, Publisher, Editor
David
Fraser lives in Nanoose Bay, on Vancouver Island. He is the founder and editor
of Ascent Aspirations Magazine, www.ascentaspirations.ca
since 1997. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in many journals and
anthologies, including Rocksalt, An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry. He has published five
collections of poetry; Going to the Well, 2004, Running Down the Wind,
2007, No Way Easy, 2010, Caught in My Throat, 2011 and, Paper
Boats, 2012 and a collection of short fiction, Dark Side of the
Billboard, 2006. In addition David has co-authored with Naomi Beth Wakan, On
Poetry an inspirational book on poetics and poetry. To keep out of trouble
he helps develop Nanaimo's spoken-word series, WordStorm. www.wordstorm.ca. In
October 2009 and 2010 he participated in Random Acts of Poetry, a national poetry program
that brings poetry to the streets of Canada. David is a full member of the
League of Canadian Poets and is available for performances and readings via funding
with LCP.
