Michael MacLennan

January 30, 2013 by

mmaclennan-lgInterview by Steve Neufeld

Born in Vancouver, Michael Lewis MacLennan now divides his time between Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles, working as a playwright, screenwriter and TV producer.

He began his screenwriting career as Writer and Story Editor for CBC’s Wind At My Back, then went on to be a Co-Executive Producer on Showtime/Showcase’s Queer As Folk, a ground-breaking drama about urban gay culture. After that he became Co-Creator, Executive Producer and head writer of City TV’s flagship dramatic series about a high-end restaurant in Yaletown called Godiva’s. Currently Michael is helming his new series, Global TV’s Bomb Girls, which chronicles the lives of the women who worked in a Toronto munitions factory during World War II.

I get Michael on the phone on January 16th, 2013, just before the latest episode of Bomb Girls airs on Global. Michael has just arrived home after a pitch meeting that ran long. He takes a moment to pour himself a drink, while I unsuccessfully attempt to set my phone to speaker. Then he sits down, I jam my phone between my shoulder and ear, and we get to talking.

After my first question, he says, “Oh man, I haven’t thought about this stuff in years. I didn’t realize it was going to be this kind of interview.” I apologize, hoping he doesn’t feel like I am trolling, Barbara Walters-like, for tearful confessions, but Michael assures me it’s fine, and we slide into an easy conversation. [Read more…]

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Michael Chabon speaks with PRISM

January 12, 2013 by

Our sister (cousin?) publication at UBC, PRISM international, has been doing a great job publishing book reviews and interviews, and has a fascinating interview up with Michael Chabon:

In Kavalier and Clay you went to comics for the feel of the narrative, and in The Yiddish Policeman’s Union you channeled the great detective writers like Chandler and Hammett. In Telegraph Avenue, I found it was your voice I was hearing more than anyone else’s. Were you looking for a specific voice in Telegraph Avenue?

Every book requires that you invent a dialect in which to write it. That was as true of this book as any other. To me, the narrator of this book felt most closely akin to the narrator of Kavalier and Clay. In that book, even though different chapters are written from different characters’ points of view, they are very heavily filtered through the voice of the narrator, who has encyclopedic knowledge of all subjects and is a master of time and history and location. That narrator is present in this book too, but he’s concealed himself under the thoughts and internal voices of the characters, though he reveals himself in flashes. When Archie is first introduced—”moon-faced, mountainous, moderately stoned” and “Oft-noted but not disadvantageous resemblance to Gamera”—those aren’t things Archie thinks about himself. In this book, the narrator steps back more frequently into the background.

Read the full interview.

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