This week I wrote a series of three essays for Random House’s excellent Hazlitt magazine about Failure, and they were sufficiently into it that they built a week around my writing. Looks like I didn’t FAIL to impress them (bwah bwahhhh).
Read on to find the link between the Titantic, the Challenger, Travis Bickle, and improv theater:
You can read all of my Hazlitt pieces here.
Posted on April 21, 2013 at 5:51 pm
(NOTE: A shortened version of this obituary appears in Cranbrook, BC area newspapers.)
An average, ordinary obituary begins with the basic facts of a person’s life: Ruby Laritta Sinclair, born September 27, 1917, died January 8, 2013. Aged 95. This is true, as is the fact that she leaves behind her three children: Gale, Brent, and Lorie, and 6 grandchildren: Chris Sinclair (Lauren), Megan Long (Alex), Julia Sinclair, Angelina Kling (Jonathan), Kaitlin Fontana—me—and Callie Fontana; and three great-grandchildren: Megan and Alex’s Everett and Chelsea, and Chris and Lauren’s Hannah, with more on the way. These people are all hers in one way or another, and while this is ordinary genealogy in the ordinary obituary of a person, it is also extraordinary because this is my family, and this is the family of an extraordinary woman. So an ordinary obituary simply will not do in this case.
Posted on January 25, 2013 at 5:15 pm
For your consideration: Spidey vs. Spidey, and my drawing skills.
Hi Kids. It’s fall in New York City, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m writing a lot, doing very fun sketch comedy with my brand new group, BREAKFAST FOR DINNER, and eating all the foods (as I do). Also, I just made the most boring cookies, somehow. How? I don’t know. They somehow have the dominant taste of “peanut air” even though there’s a great deal of actual peanut butter in them. Am I eating them regardless? Better believe.
But back to the task at hand: writing a lot. A new project I’m involved in, and one that I’m very pleased to be a part of, is Hazlitt Magazine. It’s a new, online magazine with the heft of Random House publishing behind it. And it’s great. I’m writing (and drawing–say wha?? Yeah!) a column for them entitled Venn Again, and it’s fun and challenging and kind of the best.
Here are my first four entries (the visual above is my drawing for the Spidey vs. Spidey entry):
Leonard Cohen vs. The Smoke Monster from Lost!
I will henceforth be posting these as they go up at Hazlitt, and tweeting about them, too. You can also read my feature about female comedy memoirs, or Femoirs.
And now, to eat some more peanut air. Salud.
Posted on October 1, 2012 at 2:37 am
After some heavy duty coming and going, and a quick and dirty education in the US visa system, I’m now proud to announce that I’ll be spending some time in the lovely and amazing city of New York.
I’m now working at Continuum Publishing, an academic publisher who handles the 33 1/3 series (my fave!) among others. This is my day job, and an awesome one to boot. I will still definitely freelance write (and am still definitely freelance writing, present tense) on the side for my Canadian cohorts. I will shortly have some more announcements about that, as well, and I feel very lucky to have amazing relationships with editors and publishers in Canada who support my move.
It’s been an amazing, interesting, crazy, strange and, at times, difficult few months in the lead up to my transition from Vancouver to New York. I’m finally settling in here, and it feels nice to do so. Thanks to all of my friends and family for help making that happen. I feel supported and loved, and that’s no small thing in this world.
I love Vancouver, and I miss it. The people especially. But I am so in love with New York it hurts. Good hurt. Never bad.
More soon! Promise!
Posted on June 2, 2012 at 4:14 pm
I’ve been at this freelance thing long enough that I feel confident in beginning sentences thusly: “My professional writing life…” So, here goes: My professional writing life seems to be characterized by bouts of furious and extreme activity followed by fallow periods of squirmy inactivity. I never get quite comfortable with the latter (Ack! What if nothing ever happens writing-wise again?!) but the longer I do this, the more I see that that is the lot of the nonfiction writer in this world. Unless, of course, s/he is an incredible factory of production, which most of us are not. We are lazy and mean, as Orwell once said. And we like it that way.
Having embraced the fallow periods as much as I can, I have started trying to use them for good — as opposed to, let’s say, using them to watch everything Netflix has on offer that week. I therefore wish to present a new series of blog posts I’m going to attempt (hedging, always hedging, kids…that way you never have to fully commit. See: Orwell), What I’m Reading.
In this, Volume 1 of the series, may I present Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan?
Posted on April 11, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Oh hey. Hey There.
I’m hanging out, planning my next moves (which so far involves a lot of eating and window shopping…hard life!). But I have an exciting announcement. Drumroll, please…
Fresh at Twenty: The Oral History of Mint Records has been nominated for an award! And not just any award, no. The longest-titled award in the history of awards. Ahem: FAT is nominated for the 2012 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. Seriously! I’m as happy as that title is long. Thanks, ARSC!
Thanks, as well, to ECW Press and especially my lovely editor Jen Hale.
More updates soon. Get out there and enjoy the springtime, kids!
Posted on March 28, 2012 at 7:26 pm
Chapters knows what’s up, guys. (Thanks to the lovely and talented Brit Kwasney of Bright Photo for spotting this, in North Vancouver.) I like that I’m below Zeppelin, and between Aerosmith, Ian and Sylvia, and Neil Young. Somehow, poifect.
You’re also now able to purchase a Kindle version of Fresh at Twenty at Amazon–and yes, the playlist is still intact! Happy reading!
Posted on March 3, 2012 at 5:50 am
Whew. It would appear that the gods of doing stuff have blessed me thus: “And 2012 shall be a busy year, and all shall be well!”
And it is well, friends, with lots of fun developments on the horizon, some of which I will announce shortly (part of it is temporarily top secret, which is awesome but means I have to keep it under wraps, at least for now).
In the meantime, however, I’d like to take a moment to thank Drew Nelles and the whole crew at Maisonneuve magazine for nominating two of my pieces, “Going Viral,” (Summer 2011) about the ascendance of Halifax comedy group Picnicface to television star status; and “We Will Not Leave this Place” (Winter 2011), an essay about my hometown and the curse which plagues its residents, for National Magazine Awards.
Maisonneuve is an excellent quarterly based out of Montreal and, in my mind, represents the best of what Canadian magazines can achieve: relevance without being slavish to trendiness, and a sense of purpose without an overinflated sense of self-importance. I love this magazine, and I would love it even if I wasn’t in it. You should subscribe to it.
Also, they have awesome online content. And some of my best friends, and the best writers I know, have written amazing pieces for them over the last year (Kim Fu! Andrea Bennett!). They know what’s up over there.
Okay, enough of that! You can only circle jerk a magazine so much before you start to get some wicked papercuts. Amiright, guys?
Stay tuned for those future-secret announcements. And if you’re in Vancouver and feeling bored, sad and snowy tonight, come see me improvise at the Havana Theatre (1212 Commercial Drive) at 8pm. xo
Posted on January 16, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Happy December, friends! What the galdarn happened to 2011? Can someone fill me in? Drake? You seem particularly insightful this year, sir. What say you?
On a related note, Drake’s Take Care is probably my favourite album this year, nestled closely in with Destroyer’s Kaputt and Anna Calvi’s self-titled album. Go get em, friends. They’re all so great. Maybe I’ll do a more comprehensive 2011 list in the weeks to come; it’s something I used to do a lot in years past as a member of the cultural critic class. Hmm. Then again–being lazy seems like fun, since this year has been batty and December downtime has been pretty lovely.
December: it’s as much about what you might do as what you might not. Ta-da!
Finally, I wanted to share this awesome illustration, by the fabulous Genevieve Simms.
I have an essay about my hometown, childhood and leaving coming out in the Winter issue of Maisonneuve, on newsstands Dec. 16. Genevieve drew the accompanying illustration to the piece (which is a full page in the magazine), and she has managed to beautifully capture the themes as well as surprise me in her interpretation. Please buy the issue, and support Genevieve by purchasing her prints! Thanks, Genevieve.
Posted on December 6, 2011 at 10:58 pm
It’s been a busy few weeks ’round these parts, as fall tends to be for freelance types like me. I finally had a moment to breathe today, and as I was organizing the teetering pile of To Do on my desk, I found the disc of photos from the book launch. The lovely Brit Kwasney at Bright Photo (who also happens to be an old friend) took these awesome shots, and looking through them I was reminded of how completely awesome the launch was. Thanks again to everyone for coming, and enjoy the gallery!
And please check out Brit’s website; she’s a rad photographer and a lovely person and deserves your business.
(Photos below the jump.)
Posted on November 14, 2011 at 11:29 pm