Dec 062011
 

CBC Canada Writes producer Sarah Gilbert asked dg to name a “writer to watch” when she commissioned his short story “Snow Days” for the Winter Tales series. He picked NC Contributing Editor R. W. Gray (who writes NC at the Movies for the magazine). DG discovered Rob Gray when he was reading books for the annual Danuta Gleed Literary Award. See Rob’s story “Crisp” published earlier on these pages and his lovely screenplay for the movie Alice & Huck.

And then read his essay on the Canada Writes website (link below.)

dg

 

Growing a Tail

by R. W. Gray

 

I come from a family of mythological creatures and tall-tale tellers: people who live in the most reckless and absurd way possible, and the people who love them and show that love by seeing those foibles and face plants as fodder. My grandfather was mythic. He danced with loons, he was so small they stuck him between the double hulls of the naval ships to weld, and he was a furious smoker which led to him setting fire to himself as we sped down the highway on our way to Barkerville to pan for gold once. Mythic.
When he died he only grew bigger in the tales, but he left the rest of us with no new material. Whether due to genetics or poor example, we, too, now each have our mythic moments. We take turns. And we take turns telling the tall tales. We pass them back and forth like some giant ball of rubber bands, adding another, then another, until they can build a small town and rest stop near what started simply as the Christmas the neighbour shot himself in the basement.

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