re: tour time again!!!

hello friends, fans, lovers, etc......

i'll be hitting the road again this week, after a couple weeks at home......i'll be casting off to Prince George to partake in the UNBC Weaving Words Celebration!! Richard Van Camp and Garry Gottfriedson will also be there, so it should be great fun! I'll be hosting another rowdy session of "BINGO POETRY" as well as reading with Garry on Saturday.......

so, if ye be from thar, come check it out and have a good time!!!!

in the meantime, here's a few images of Garry's latest book, "Skin like Mine" and "Whiskey Bullets."

Garry was one of the first people who believed in what i was doing as a writer, and i'll never forget the first time i met and heard him read. It was around 1998, and i was TRU in Kamloops, skipping class, when the First Nations Student Worker, Linda Thomas nabbed me, and forcibly introduced me to Garry. She said, "I HAD to come to his reading!" I tried to dodge it, but she grabbed me and dragged me to the hall in the Campus Activity Centre. Well, it blew my mind what Garry had read, flames, barb wire and gasoline spewed through the air, vitriolic, explosive, and even savage.

He read with such a beauty and ferocity that i had no idea could exist in one poem.......i went up immediately and bugged him, asking him questions......blown away totally.......he even gave me a copy of the poems he read that day, eventually we forged a friendship that has lasted off and on to this day. I've even got a rare copy of his manuscript "Coyote Moon Story." He changed my life for the better by encouraging to express myself and to not be afraid of using my voice. A great mentor.

Also, Richard Van Camp, another great mentor who championed me to get a book deal with Theytus books about five years ago. My first professional foray into the world of publishing. I was a bit naive, and probably a bit over the top in terms of just being a keener and wanting to get the book out there.

Anyway, Richard was living here in Kamloops, and sometime around 2003 i managed to get a copy of my chapbook famously titled "God Hates Us All"........which i came up with before the album by Slayer. So, i give a copy of my chapbook to a friend, who passed it on to Richard, then a few weeks passed by, and i get a phone call from someone claiming to be Richard Van Camp and wanting to meet in half an hour at Tim Horton's for a coffee.

Nervously, my girlfriend, Scarlett and I went to Tim Horton's and lo and behold there he was, the man himself, sitting with my chapbook, excited about what potential there was in it. We must have talked excitedly for an hour before we decided it was time to go, and Richard said he'd keep in touch, and do everything he could to help me get a book deal, that my talent shouldn't go to waste. What a champ, i love the guy so much. He's always been a great supporter, and a friend to myself, to my ex, and our children. He edited my first book, "Somewhere in this Inferno" while on tour in France, and would send me updates nearly daily about how much he loved the book. A labour of love that never quite found the home it should have, but strangely, people have heard about it, and have tracked me down asking for any kind of copy of it. I think it will live to see the light again........

So, i've been fortunate enough to have mentors appear in my life when i needed them most, and i will always remember them and what they've done. Other great mentors have been Doug Buis, for showing me how to edit in Final Cut Pro, forever changing my life for the better in video, and Ashok Mathur for providing me with a home for over a year at the CICAC, the Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada........Jen Budney was also a great mentor to me in the arts administration, and just teaching me a lot about the art world in general..........and there are more.........

well, it's nearly four thirty in the morning, and i've got to get some sleep........

see you soon somewhere down the road........

chrisbose.
ps: by the way, i have read and really value the books my mentors have written......do check them out.....and mine too!!!

Stone the Crow is published by Kegedonce Press, and is my collection of 12 years or so worth of poetry........i've already written another volume of poetry and hope to get it going soon too.......

you can order any of these books online, and at your favourite bookstore!