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Gwen Tuinman

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Gwen Tuinman

Gwen Tuinman is a novelist, born and raised in rural southern Ontario. Fascinated by the landscape of human tenacity, she writes about people navigating the social restrictions of their era. Her storytelling is influenced by an interest in bygone days. She lives in the Kawartha Lakes region with her husband. Gwen is the author of UNREST (Random House Canada), a 19th-century historical adventure novel.

Using Quotation Marks: Yes or No

I’ve been thinking a lot about the absence of quotation marks in recent literature. Our current generation of fiction writers is not the first to cast off traditional dialogue punctuation. James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and E.L. Doctorow were among the early pioneers in that regard. 

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, published in 1992, was the first quotation mark free novel I read. Readers complained about the difficulty to distinguish dialogue from narration. I remember my own concentration being pulled from the story. Oh wait, someone just spoke? Who said that? After a few chapters, persistence paid off. The story’s current pulled me forward.

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Indentured Servitude in Canada

In mid-1800s Canada, there existed the core ingrained settler values of independence and self-reliance that dissuaded municipalities from lending financial assistance to the poor in rural areas. As urban populations grew, the incidence of poverty and crime escalated. Poor laws, like the ones that obligated England’s municipalities to assist impoverished locals, did not exist in Canada. With no effective welfare infrastructure, communities responded by “auctioning off” able-bodied poor children and adults who had neither family nor local relations to help them.

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Cherished

My great-grandmother Essie always wore an apron, the full-bib type that buttoned together in the back. Hers were made of lightweight cotton printed with floral patterns and trimmed with piping that matched. Even as a small child, I felt the love and warmth and story inside her tilting house. Although mindful and very much living in the now, part of me lingers in that time so vivid in my mind.

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On Writing: A Body at Work in a Body of Work

A few summers ago, my reading of Alias Grace kicked off a Margaret Atwood obsession. The inside cover listed 26 novels, 7 nonfiction works, 8 children’s books and 16 books of poetry. Other titles have since joined this dizzying inventory. While I listened to scores of online interviews to glean every bit of her wisdom, I most remember her advice to a pair of eager high-school-aged would-be writers. Take care of your back.

She reminded us that a body of work comes not only from cerebral exertion, but from unsung heroics of the body.

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The Lost Daughter

On the advice of another author, I read Elena Ferrante’s novel The Days Of Abandonment. Her storytelling is direct, often addressing uncomfortable and socially taboo feelings about marriage divorce and motherhood. Parts left me cringing. The novel reaffirms that a character’s unabashed honesty pulls readers deep inside their point of view.

Netflix is showing The Lost Daughter, a small budget indie film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She wrote the script based on Ferrante’s novel of the same title about Leda, a middle-aged divorcee whose long-awaited vacation leads to painful introspection. I once binged on episodes of Actors Roundtable that featured Gyllenhaal. She asked why women actors arrived on set in full makeup and dress like bridesmaids while male panelists dress casually in T-shirts and jeans. She also pointed out that the male-dominated film industry generates movies to satisfy the male gaze.

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Winter Pastimes for Pioneers

Early settlers in Upper Canada, particularly those living in rural areas, sought ways to break the isolation and monotony of long winters and heavy snows. Dog sleds and snow shoes that we regard as entertainment today were common 1800s instruments of travel over frozen lakes and rivers. So what did pioneers do for fun?

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How Long I Write Each Day

People often ask, how long I write each day. I stare above their head, then hem and haw as if grappling with a physics calculation. My brows shrug; my mouth purses. How long indeed?

I try to quantify how many hours I spend daily hunkered over the computer keyboard. Surely this is the writing they want to know about. But my answer changes day to day, depending on where I am in the creative loop.

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And Then He Said . . .

This past week, I listened to a podcast in which an award-winning author was interviewed about her writing life and most recent publication. She’s received critical acclaim for four New York Times bestselling novels and two short story collections. In short, she’s a force. Her rapport with the podcast host was energetic and his questions yielded rich content.

After a lengthy conversation, the author commented with surprise on the time. She needed to pick up her child from school. How sweet. How human.

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Women of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House”

Among my favourite girlhood books was the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Late 1800s pioneer life captivated me. Kathryn Adam, a scholar in midwestern women’s history and literature, regards Wilder’s female characters as historical resources that reveal “role expectations and feelings of western women”.

In her essay, Laura, Ma, Mary, Carrie, and Grace: Western Women as Portrayed by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Adam says that Wilder shows us “women engaged in the rigors of homesteading, women building community and culture on the frontier, women working to preserve the family in the face of bitter adversity (…) in a series of vividly realized frontier landscapes.”

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