Coupland borrows an Earth Sandwich

Sometimes writers will stop conversations to have this one:

“Can I use that?”
“What?”
“That joke/anecdote/story/funny phrase.”
“Why?”
“In a story? Can I use it?”

Writers are often collage artists, making stories out of observations, culling dialogue from covert eavesdropping. It makes sense that some might make a habit of asking permission if they’ve ever been called out for stealing ideas.

Last week, Douglas Coupland twittered about ZeFrank,  the blogger who invented the Earth Sandwich idea Coupland uses in his new book Generation A. The Earth Sandwich is, in short, when two people on opposite ends of the earth put a piece of bread down, forming a sandwich, and take a photo. In the book, Coupland describes the Earth Sandwich in detail without giving credit to its creator.

In a promotional video for Generation A, now offline, there is a small credit on the screen, but the blogger claims this is  “still infuriating” and asks, “Do you think I could get away with doing something he did VERBATIM and them putting a tiny credit?”

Coupland’s twitter response said, “@zefrank. I send you warm wishes and much cheer. And thank you for the lovely (and amazing) Earth Sandwich idea. You are brilliant.”

This conversation starts a larger one – when we put ideas into the world, via the Internet or casual conversation at a bar, are they fair game for appropriation? Should we keep our wit to ourselves when Douglas Coupland is within earshot?

Friends of mine know to interject and say, “No, you can’t use that.” Perhaps we should all be wary of the observer with the moleskine. Or, you know, relax a little about our ideas.

Douglas Coupland reminisces about writing Generation X

This month, acclaimed author and zeitgeist-hound Douglas Coupland publishes his 11th novel, Generation A. In advance of the occasion, he took the opportunity in yesterday’s Guardian to jump into the Wayback Machine and talk about the book that made him famous two decades ago (which, in the hyper-jacked-up Coupland sensibility is tantamount to a couple of centuries….):

[I]t’s odd that Gen X was the thing that would change my life, because everything about the book reeked of disaster and bad decision-making. I’d only begun writing less than three years earlier – non-fiction for magazines in Canada – and I was soon hitting that point in life where poor decisions come back to bite one. I was at the end of my 20s and it was becoming clear to me that my 30s were going to be a continuing mix of rootlessness and poverty.

Thanks to an agent who was “a real huckster” (Coupland’s words), the author landed a sizable advance, which led to his own road-to-Damascus moment at (naturally) Davisville subway station in Toronto:

[O]ne afternoon in April of 1989, I was emerging from the Davisville subway station – there had just been a rainstorm and the sunset was cold and tangerine – and a wave swept over me, one of those waves that occur not too often in one’s lifetime. It was one of the few times I’ve ever heard “a voice” (whatever a voice really is), and the voice very clearly said to me: “OK, Doug. It appears that you’re going to be a full-time writer now. Good. But that means you have to write fiction rather than non-fiction, because fiction is purer. You’ll have to clear all your decks and you’re going to have to change the way you see both you and your future.”

And then the voice left, and I was just another guy standing on a wet sidewalk outside the Golden Griddle. But life was now different.

And the rest, as they say, is hipster history.

September Q&Q: Dany Laferrière and more in the spotlight on Quebec publishing

The cover star of the September issue of Q&Q is the Haitian-born, Montreal-based author Dany Laferrière, who came to national attention in the 1980s with his first novel, How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired, and is set to make a comeback in English-Canada with his latest novel. Also in the issue, Q&Q looks at a Quebec City publishing house that is bringing English-Canadian writing to French readers, and at the Montreal micro-publisher Conundrum Press, which evolved from being a quirky literary house to a quirky publisher of graphic novels. All that plus Fall Announcements, listing every fall adult title, and reviews of Linwood Barclay’s Fear the Worst, Douglas Coupland’s Generation A, Shinan Govani’s Boldface Names, and Arthur Slade’s The Hunchback Assignments.

Returning North

Globe-trotting novelist Dany Laferrière is a big-time celebrity in Quebec. Now, after a decade-long hiatus, he’s being published again in English

Exposing family secrets

Six authors on navigating the personal minefield of memoir writing

The English invasion

An upstart Quebec City house is discovering a surprising demand in its home province for English-Canadian writing. And more in the spotlight on Quebec publishing: The evolution of Conundrum Press, and the dying art of literary translation

Fall Announcements

The season’s complete listings

FRONTMATTER

Bonnie Burnard is back in the spotlight

Don LePan among the Animals

Snapshot: BookNet Canada’s new CEO Noah Genner

Cover to Cover: Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv’s The Tel Aviv Dossier

The e-catalogue cometh

Harry Bruce on the Hugh MacLennan novel that almost never was

Local Buzz: Back to the Beach

GUEST OPINION

Canada’s beleaguered litmags must experiment online to stay relevant, argues Jason McBride

REVIEWS

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

Galore by Michael Crummey

The Fallen by Stephen Finucan

Animal by Alexandra Leggat

Plus more fiction, non-fiction, and poetry

BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Violet by Tania Stehlik and Vanja Vuleta Jovanovic

The Winter Drey by Sean Dixon

The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

Plus more fiction, non-fiction, and picture books

THE LAST WORD

The ups and downs of Amazon’s sales rankings can drive authors to distraction, writes Linwood Barclay