25th Trillium Award

Read Ontario, with Charlie Angus

 
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Charlie Angus

Ontario has a wealth of fantastic writers and amazing stories. This October the Ontario Book Publishers Organization is highlighting a selection of Ontario's finest writing from some of the great Ontario publishers. Pick up an Ontario book and ?Read Ontario!?

But just where does the magic happen? Visit the Open Book: Toronto and Open Book: Ontario websites over the next few weeks and find out which places in Ontario captivate the writers in our province. We asked a host of authors where they would most like to hide away and write. Today, NDP Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay Charlie Angus tells us why, despite all the writing he does one the road, it's his hometown of Cobalt that truly inspires him to work at his best.

Charlie Angus's latest book, Unlikely Radicals: The Story of the Adams Mine Dump War (Between the Lines), is an inspiring true story of the determined diverse communities who banded together to resist the dumping of millions of tonnes of waste into the Adams Mines. Visit a participating Read Ontario independent bookstore to purchase your copy, or click here for details on how you can enter to win Unlikely Radicals and 41 other Read Ontario books.

Read Ontario: Charlie Angus

As a Member of Parliament, I am constantly travelling. I spend many days killing time in airports. I love tuning out the chaos of travel by sitting down with the laptop to work on book projects. This portable deskwork is possible because of the enormous amount of advance prep I do before actually beginning to write. Before I put down a single sentence, I spend a very long time building a file of all possible quotes, references, chronologies, etc., so that everything that I need is available on my hard drive.

Having access to this skeleton archive allows me to work on the book whenever I am travelling. In previous book projects I spent too much time trying to track down a quote or verify a reference. In my last project, I made sure that I had every piece of documented evidence in an easy-to-find chronology. I love sitting in a busy airport with the computer on my lap and the book project in front of me. I can spend hours tuning out the boredom and chaos of travel by tinkering with the chapters and working through the process of writing.

These days I seem to live on the road, thus if go anywhere to write, I would go home to Cobalt. I love the landscape of my town and the ragged bits of history that jut out from the scarred rocks and hillsides. I live in an old mine manager?s house in the shadow of a long-closed silver mining operation. History is never very far away from the window of our porch and so it provides a good backdrop for writing and reflection. My main advisor/editor is my wife. We spend hours over a glass (or two) of wine discussing book projects and what we have learned. This makes the writing process less solitary and more engaging.



Charlie Angus has served as the NDP Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay since 2004 and he is currently the NDP?s spokesperson on Privacy, Ethics and Government Accountability. In 1985 he formed the Juno-nominated alt-country band Grievous Angels. He is author/co-author of five books on Northern Ontario life and culture, including We Lived a Life and Then Some and Mirrors of Stone. He was named in Macleans Power List in 2012 as one of the 25 Most Influential Canadians and in 2012, Zoomer Magazine chose him as the third most influential Canadian over the age of 45.

For more information about The Unlikely Radicals please visit the Between the Lines website.

Buy this book at your local independent bookstore or online at the publisher, Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.

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