The Authors Book Club

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  • Tag: Blair Hurley

    • Writing THE DEVOTED: the Research and Discipline of Stepping into My Novel

      Posted at 9:45 am by TheAuthorsBookClub
      Feb 18th

      Guest post by Blair Hurley

      I wrote my first novel, The Devoted, while still living in my hometown of Boston, fresh out of a grad writing program and keen to tell a story that I felt passionate about. It took four or five years of struggling with scenes and characters and memories from my own childhood, but it didn’t really come together as a story until I realized that I had to step into risky, unknown territory, both from my own realm of experience and also beyond it.

      The Devoted is inspired by both my Irish Catholic roots and my lifelong interest and research into Buddhism in America, particularly the experience of women exploring Buddhist practice. The novel is about a Boston Irish Catholic woman who, disillusioned by the sexual abuse scandals of the church that broke in the early 2000s, converts to Zen Buddhism. After heartbreak and betrayal, she becomes trapped in a manipulative sexual relationship with her Zen Master. The book raises the question of how the #metoo movement can play out in spiritual spaces, where powerful, respected teachers have abused their authority with vulnerable students seeking a spiritual experience. It also explores the healing and redemptive power that faith, both Catholic and Zen, can bring to our lives.

      To write the novel, I had to immerse myself in research about both Catholicism and Zen, reading religious texts, but also Zen poetry, koans, and folktales from Buddhist cultures. I read the fascinating memoirs of medieval Buddhist nuns and was surprised to discover their honest, forthright discussions of the discrimination they encountered. In one Tibetan nun’s account, she sings mournfully of how her Master refuses to believe she can achieve the same level of spiritual accomplishment as the monks that surround her; she defiantly declares she will prove him wrong.

      Many of my readers assume that I’m more familiar with the Catholic portions of the story, but even though my family has Irish Catholic history, I was raised without any particular religious affiliation, free to explore and visit religious spaces without any sort of official allegiance. To write my character’s strict Catholic upbringing, I had to dive deep into Catholic stories, songs, and doctrine, questioning my family about their own memories and jokes and superstitions. When writing scenes set both in Catholic churches and Buddhist Zendos, I felt as much of an outsider as my character, stepping tentatively inside the temple for the first time. What if I got some crucial points of doctrine or ritual wrong? What if I inadvertently disrespected someone else’s sacred space? For the early drafts of my writing, I hovered nervously on the edges of writing these scenes, afraid to offend or to misrepresent, afraid that I didn’t have what it took to write the scene authentically. Writers often struggle with this question of authenticity — do I dare tell this story? Is it my story to tell? Can I do this story justice?

      For me, the line came when I realized I had written cautiously around the edges of the real issues I wanted to address. To really show my character’s experience on the page — with her family, with her Zen Master, singing in church and running away from it, fighting with her brother and falling in love and betraying people all on her messy quest for personal grace — I had to walk into those rooms with her. I had to do my homework, get the research right, walk into those spaces myself whenever I could, and in my imagination when I couldn’t. I visited Zen and Tibetan temples, and wandered in and out of Catholic churches; I read and listened; and at some point, when I had done the work, I had to sit down at my desk, take a deep breath, and begin.


      Blair Hurley is the author of The Devoted published by W.W. Norton and Penguin Random House Canada. The novel was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her work is published or forthcoming in Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Ninth Letter, Guernica, Paris Review Daily, West Branch, and elsewhere. She received a 2018 Pushcart Prize and scholarships from Bread Loaf, Hawthornden Castle, and the Ontario Arts Council.

      Visit Blair’s website. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

      Posted in Guest Authors, Recommended Books | Tagged Blair Hurley, book clubs, fiction, The Authors' Book Club, The Devoted
    • We welcomed 40 authors!

      Posted at 12:55 pm by TheAuthorsBookClub
      Feb 1st

      When our website launched on January 1, 2020, we set 15 authors as a goal (including the two of us!) for the month. We ended with 40! Forty amazing authors from across Canada.

      As Canadian authors and readers ourselves, we wanted to support Canadian book publishers and authors who worked and lived in Canada. We wanted to create a community that was welcoming and inclusive with authors from big and small publishing houses, and authors at different stages of their professional writing careers.

      We thank all the authors who have joined The Authors’ Book Club. We could not have done this without you! A special thanks to Uzma Jalauddin, Laurie Petrou, Marissa Stapley, Blair Hurley, and Farzana Doctor who were among the first authors to support this initiative. Thank you for leading the way! We also want to thank Deborah Dundas from the Toronto Star and Sue Carter from Quill & Quire for helping to generate awareness of what we are doing.

      As we continue to welcome authors, we will now focus on increasing our visibility amongst private book clubs. We remain committed to creating a vibrant online community for author and reader engagement.

      Posted in General | Tagged ann y.k. choi, authors, Blair Hurley, book clubs, canadian authors, Canadian books, Canadian publishing, david albertyn, Farzana Doctor, Fiona Ross, Laurie Petrou, literature, Marissa Stapley, The Authors' Book Club, Uzma Jalaluddin
    • Name the Authors!

      Posted at 1:15 pm by TheAuthorsBookClub
      Jan 11th

      Our website is 11 days old. We are grateful to the authors who have joined our initiative to connect readers with authors working and living across Canada.

      Readers, can you name our amazing authors?

      Answers:

      Click on their names to learn more about them & how you can invite an author to your next book club meeting.

      1 Marissa Stapley

      2 Becky Blake

      3 Tehmina Khan

      4 Jenny Heijun Wills

      5 David Albertyn

      6 Maria Meindl

      7 Nate Hendley

      8 Lisa de Nikolits

      9 Farzana Doctor

      10 Laurie Petrou

      11 Blair Hurley

      12 Ann Y.K. Choi

      13 Uzma Jalaluddin


      Posted in General | Tagged ann y.k. choi, authors, Becky Blake, Blair Hurley, book clubs, canadian authors, canadian book clubs, CanLit, david albertyn, DiverseCanLit, Farzana Doctor, Invite An Author, Jenny Heijun Wills, Laurie Petrou, Lisa di Nikolits, Maria Meindl, Marissa Stapley, Nate Hendley, Tehmina Khan, The Authors' Book Club, Uzma Jalaluddin
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