Friday Feature: @BJC

As many of you know, each Friday we twitch our collective curtains and peer into the lives of another Prose neighbour, finding out what makes them tick. Well, time has efficiently and ceaselessly marched by and brings us here to another Friday Feature. HUZZAH! This week sees a Proser that most of you, we are sure, will know. It’s @BJC

P: What is your given name and your Proser username?

B: My given name is Robert Richard Joseph Canuel but I go by the name of Bob. Proser name is Bjc.

P: Where, pray tell, do you live?

B: I live with my wife, daughter and son-in-law in Calgary, Alberta. But most of my life was spent in the province of Ontario.

P: What is your occupation?

B: I am happily retired but when people actually paid me to do things, I was a self-employed management consultant specializing in Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity. If you want to know what that is, you’ll have to send me a PM here on Prose.

P: What is your relationship with writing and how has it evolved?

B: I’ve been writing a long time. It began when I was a teenager, so that would mean over 50 years. Tried my hand at short stories a few times but the rest of the time has been devoted to poetry. To analogize, I think I’d make a better photographer than film-maker. Writing is a part of who I am and always will be. In terms of my evolution as a writer, let’s say that my first efforts were the usual wordy tales of woe and pain and passion. As I grew older, though, my writing took on a ‘show/don’t tell’ approach that relies on using as few words as possible to get the thought/feeling/idea clearly and consisely on the page. I would describe my writing today as 'spare and strong and evocative'.

P: What value does reading add to both your personal and professional life?

B: I am always reading…all kinds of material in all kinds of forms…online, ebooks, hardcopy…on subjects as varied as sci-fi, fantasy, history, biography, politics, current events, science, music. I’m not sure what I would do if I couldn’t read. Life and work would certainly feel so much the poorer without it.

P: Can you describe your current literary ventures and what we can look forward to?

B: I’m planning to publish some chapbooks…waiting for Prose’s launch of a book facility [EXTREMELY, INCREDIBLY IMMINENT – Prose] to help with that…and perhaps a collection of poems. Now that I am situated in Calgary, I’m hoping to join local writer’s groups here, attend some workshops and do some public readings again. Looking forward to all of that.

P: What do you love about Prose?

B: I enjoy Prose for its role as an open forum for writers at all levels of skill and maturity from so many different backgrounds with an integrity I find to be rare in the online world. I’ve been a part of other sites but, in my opinion, they never quite managed to do what Prose has been able to do.

P: Is there one book that you would recommend everybody should read before they die?

B: Anything from Frank Herbert’s Dune series…hell, read all six books..they’re a treat for the eye, ear and mind. On the history side, anything by Barbara W. Tuchman but, particularly, The Guns of August or The March of Folly. In science, I’d recommend Dr. Richard Dawkins.

P: Do you have an unsung hero who got you into reading and/or writing?

B: Hardly unsung…J.R.R. Tolkien got me reading and ignited something in me that burns to this day. On a personal level, a good friend/playwright who taught me that writing was who I was rather than something I did.

P: Describe yourself in three words!

B: Playful, curious and direct.

P: Is there one quote, from a writer or otherwise, that sums you up?

B: A paraphrase actually from Bilbo’s party at the beginning of Lord of the Rings...'I don't know half of me as well as I should like, and I like less than half of me half as well as I deserve.’

P: Favourite music to write and/or read to?

B: Different kinds…classical (Joseph Haydn, Beethoven, JS Bach)…alternative (Sigur Rós, Godspeed You! Black Emperor).

P: You climb out of a time machine into a dystopian future with no books. What do you tell them?

B: How the hell did that happen? And since you probably have no idea how it happened, you don’t know what you’re missing.

P: Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you/your work/social media accounts?

B: I truly enjoy getting and giving feedback. I consider it a special privilege when someone reads my poetry and takes the time to comment. My work, such as it is, is poetry itself. I read a lot of it and, where I can, I try to offer comments back. As to social media, I honestly don’t participate in them.

If you don’t already, please follow @BJC and interact with him, like his words and just do what makes Prose so special. If you want to feature, or you know anyone that would (or you’d like them to), then please let us know at paul@theprose.com