Lawren Harris - Mount Lefroy, 1930
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
"SILVER" for The Miramichi Reader's 'The Very Best Book Award for Short Fiction' 2020 - https://miramichireader.ca/2020/08/2020-the-very-best-book-awards-best-short-fiction/
"As a disciple of the Group of Seven and an aficionado of Canadian wilderness, every page gives me a little leap of pleasure."
Robert Bateman
***
“These sharp, imaginative evocations of the world of the Group of Seven are both a joy in themselves and a welcome prompt to make us look at the paintings again. It’s refreshing to find that, a century later, they still speak to us about our lives and our country.”
Ross King author of Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven
***
"The Group of Seven gave us powerful images of our country. With this intriguing book we meet the people who might have inhabited them and hear their vivid stories of loss, wonder, joy, fear, and love. The writers bring the paintings to life with new insights into the human heart and our beautiful, fragile land."
David Wistow, author of Meet the Group of Seven
Educator Emeritus, Art Gallery of Ontario
***
heritagehouse.ca
"Ekphrastic writing is a sub-genre in creative writing where artworks are used as prompts to inspire prose and poetry. This rare anthology of flash fiction, inspired by historic Canadian paintings, incorporates all the elements of what ekphrastic writing entails. There are twenty-one stories in all, edited by Karen Schauber, that capture the imaginations and a landscape of a time when 20th century Canadians—pioneers—were forging a national identity through art. These stories are diverse, personal, and unique in their brevity and ellipses. They, in turn, forge a new understanding of what national identity encompasses in the twenty-first century for many of us. They make us contemplate on the human condition, on nature, on being human today."
Eva Wong Nava is the founder of CarpeArte Journal, a platform where art and text intersect.
http://www.ekphrastic.net/ Sept 8, 2019
***
Robert Bateman
***
“These sharp, imaginative evocations of the world of the Group of Seven are both a joy in themselves and a welcome prompt to make us look at the paintings again. It’s refreshing to find that, a century later, they still speak to us about our lives and our country.”
Ross King author of Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven
***
"The Group of Seven gave us powerful images of our country. With this intriguing book we meet the people who might have inhabited them and hear their vivid stories of loss, wonder, joy, fear, and love. The writers bring the paintings to life with new insights into the human heart and our beautiful, fragile land."
David Wistow, author of Meet the Group of Seven
Educator Emeritus, Art Gallery of Ontario
***
heritagehouse.ca
"Ekphrastic writing is a sub-genre in creative writing where artworks are used as prompts to inspire prose and poetry. This rare anthology of flash fiction, inspired by historic Canadian paintings, incorporates all the elements of what ekphrastic writing entails. There are twenty-one stories in all, edited by Karen Schauber, that capture the imaginations and a landscape of a time when 20th century Canadians—pioneers—were forging a national identity through art. These stories are diverse, personal, and unique in their brevity and ellipses. They, in turn, forge a new understanding of what national identity encompasses in the twenty-first century for many of us. They make us contemplate on the human condition, on nature, on being human today."
Eva Wong Nava is the founder of CarpeArte Journal, a platform where art and text intersect.
http://www.ekphrastic.net/ Sept 8, 2019
***
"The Group of Seven’s first public exhibition took place in 1920. Canadians know the Group’s art intimately: their portrayals of landscapes and townscapes have helped shape our identity for one hundred years. Their art also represents our past.
How fitting then that, after a century of viewing these iconic painters and associated artists such as Emily Carr, editor Karen Schauber takes a new approach in The Group of Seven Reimagined. She pairs twenty-one beautifully reproduced paintings with the artful flash fiction prose of award-winning, accomplished writers. These stories free us from the traditional perspective.
Flash fiction, as a form of storytelling, has experienced a revival in recent years. Flash fiction layers its meanings and employs imagery that captures attention. It invites reflection. As with great works of art, this form prompts the reader to invest time in understanding the work, fill in the spaces and emotionally connect.
While some of the stories in this book are grounded in the painted image, they all launch from the artwork into broader metaphysical or even spiritual questions. Words, the writer’s paint, are artfully chosen and applied, not one wasted. The stories all compel the reader to dive beneath their surface and linger long after the reading is complete. Writer Isabella Mori, inspired by Franz Johnston’s “Sunset in the Bush,” finds unexpected connections in the forest in “On the Way to Sechelt.” A forest canopy shelters deception in Yael Maree’s story “In Search of You” based on Alfred J. Casson’s “Shore Pattern.” Using Frederick H. Varley’s “Stormy Weather” as the inspiration, Waubgeshig Rice’s story “The Stranger in the Cove” deals with belonging. A man revisits his past in “Nine Acres,” JJ Lee drawing from L.L. FitzGerald’s “Late Fall, Manitoba” as muse.
The Group’s paintings generally exclude people, and today, people are less connected with the land. The twenty-one writers, most not yet born when the artists were painting their perceptions of the country, are either Canadian or closely connected to Canada. Their stories reflect a nation much changed in terms of landscape, population and experience.
In 1920 The Group of Seven introduced a new vision for the Canadian landscape. One hundred years later, twenty-one writers in The Group of Seven Reimagined offer a new lens for appreciating their art.
The Group of Seven Reimagined is published by Heritage House."
Patricia Sandberg - Author, 'International Book Award' winner, 'Whistler Independent Book Awards' - Finalist, and Shortlisted - 'Fred Kerner Award: Canadian Authors Association' for 'Sun Dogs and Yellowcake: Gunnar Mines - A Canadian Story', 2017, for her finely written review of 'Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings'. Sandberg's review beautifully captures this Anthology's homage to the Group of Seven and introduces flash fiction as if it has always enjoyed this pairing with the Group's landscape paintings. In 'The Ottawa Review of Books'.
https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/…/The-Group-of-Seven-Re…
***
How fitting then that, after a century of viewing these iconic painters and associated artists such as Emily Carr, editor Karen Schauber takes a new approach in The Group of Seven Reimagined. She pairs twenty-one beautifully reproduced paintings with the artful flash fiction prose of award-winning, accomplished writers. These stories free us from the traditional perspective.
Flash fiction, as a form of storytelling, has experienced a revival in recent years. Flash fiction layers its meanings and employs imagery that captures attention. It invites reflection. As with great works of art, this form prompts the reader to invest time in understanding the work, fill in the spaces and emotionally connect.
While some of the stories in this book are grounded in the painted image, they all launch from the artwork into broader metaphysical or even spiritual questions. Words, the writer’s paint, are artfully chosen and applied, not one wasted. The stories all compel the reader to dive beneath their surface and linger long after the reading is complete. Writer Isabella Mori, inspired by Franz Johnston’s “Sunset in the Bush,” finds unexpected connections in the forest in “On the Way to Sechelt.” A forest canopy shelters deception in Yael Maree’s story “In Search of You” based on Alfred J. Casson’s “Shore Pattern.” Using Frederick H. Varley’s “Stormy Weather” as the inspiration, Waubgeshig Rice’s story “The Stranger in the Cove” deals with belonging. A man revisits his past in “Nine Acres,” JJ Lee drawing from L.L. FitzGerald’s “Late Fall, Manitoba” as muse.
The Group’s paintings generally exclude people, and today, people are less connected with the land. The twenty-one writers, most not yet born when the artists were painting their perceptions of the country, are either Canadian or closely connected to Canada. Their stories reflect a nation much changed in terms of landscape, population and experience.
In 1920 The Group of Seven introduced a new vision for the Canadian landscape. One hundred years later, twenty-one writers in The Group of Seven Reimagined offer a new lens for appreciating their art.
The Group of Seven Reimagined is published by Heritage House."
Patricia Sandberg - Author, 'International Book Award' winner, 'Whistler Independent Book Awards' - Finalist, and Shortlisted - 'Fred Kerner Award: Canadian Authors Association' for 'Sun Dogs and Yellowcake: Gunnar Mines - A Canadian Story', 2017, for her finely written review of 'Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings'. Sandberg's review beautifully captures this Anthology's homage to the Group of Seven and introduces flash fiction as if it has always enjoyed this pairing with the Group's landscape paintings. In 'The Ottawa Review of Books'.
https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/…/The-Group-of-Seven-Re…
***
These paintings say 500 words: Flash fiction inspired by Group of Seven
By Christine Sismondo, Special to The Toronto Star
Tues., Oct. 15, 2019 timer 3 min. read
A hundred years ago, seven Canadian painters got together and decided to start a movement. It was born out of the horrors of war. Now, the potential horrors of climate change are giving the movement an unexpected new life and meaning.
At the time, people were trying to put the horrors and sacrifices of the Great War behind them and look to the future to reimagine and redefine Canada itself. It was a pivotal moment, given the role the country had recently played in international affairs and the challenges it faced in becoming an increasingly modern nation. These seven artists — friends and colleagues, many of whom worked together at a Toronto design firm — felt they could help shape this conversation, largely by using controversial modern painting techniques with bold strokes and bright colours to bring out the beauty of the Canadian landscape.
To celebrate the centenary of the birth of the movement that dragged Canadian art into the modern age, Heritage House press has just released “The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings,” a novel approach to a topic that, arguably at this point, has been analyzed to within an inch of its life. Instead of calling on art critics or cultural historians, editor Karen Schauber asked 25 acclaimed writers to compose “flash fiction” inspired by paintings from the Group of Seven canon. Each painting in the book is accompanied by a super-short piece (under 500 words) by writers such as Carol Bruneau, J.J. Lee and Waubgeshig Rice.
The flash fiction could be about pretty much anything, so long as it was inspired by the paintings, which are described in the foreword as an invitation to the “viewer to dream.” It’s a good range of gorgeous images, too, with everything from the instantly recognizable stark blue lakes and icebergs Lawren S. Harris painted to lesser-known pastoral scenes by A.Y. Jackson and Emily Carr.
And, while you might expect a lot of peaceful communing with nature on the page, a surprising number of the written pieces are actually dark tales of conflict and danger — forest fires, mining accidents, boat thieves and murderous plots in the woods. Nina Munteanu, a Canadian ecologist and science-fiction writer, takes J.E.H. MacDonald’s “Lake O’Hara” in a novel direction in “Alien Landscape” by reimagining it as a refuge for a space heroine fleeing a world that had destroyed nature in pursuit of progress and ended in post-apocalyptic chaos.
Other contributions are more literal, and see writers engaging more directly with the paintings as objects, such as Mireille Silcoff’s “Vernissage,” which imagines a character’s experiences at a Group of Seven exhibition that includes Edwin Holgate’s “Tree Stump by the Lake” and Tamas Dobozy’s “Radiant Grey” — a meditation on Tom Thomson’s “Grey Day in the North.” Nina Shoroplova imagines a character finding the “light within” thanks to Emily Carr’s “Sombreness Sunlit” in a story of the same name.
This puts the viewer in the driver’s seat, so to speak. Just as the writers were invited “to dream” about these paintings and come up with fresh ideas as to their meaning, so too are the readers of “The Group of Seven Reimagined.” Take a leisurely flip through this gorgeous coffee-table picture book and let your imagination run wild as you stumble upon, say, J.E.H. MacDonald’s “Mist Fantasy, Northland” — a rich image of canoes resting on a windy fall day at a lake. Then see what Oakville-based novelist Michael Mirolla came up with.
It’s a lovely book — and an invitation to take a moment and indulge in a little reimagination of your own. What better way to celebrate the Group of Seven’s 100th birthday?
***
By Christine Sismondo, Special to The Toronto Star
Tues., Oct. 15, 2019 timer 3 min. read
A hundred years ago, seven Canadian painters got together and decided to start a movement. It was born out of the horrors of war. Now, the potential horrors of climate change are giving the movement an unexpected new life and meaning.
At the time, people were trying to put the horrors and sacrifices of the Great War behind them and look to the future to reimagine and redefine Canada itself. It was a pivotal moment, given the role the country had recently played in international affairs and the challenges it faced in becoming an increasingly modern nation. These seven artists — friends and colleagues, many of whom worked together at a Toronto design firm — felt they could help shape this conversation, largely by using controversial modern painting techniques with bold strokes and bright colours to bring out the beauty of the Canadian landscape.
To celebrate the centenary of the birth of the movement that dragged Canadian art into the modern age, Heritage House press has just released “The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings,” a novel approach to a topic that, arguably at this point, has been analyzed to within an inch of its life. Instead of calling on art critics or cultural historians, editor Karen Schauber asked 25 acclaimed writers to compose “flash fiction” inspired by paintings from the Group of Seven canon. Each painting in the book is accompanied by a super-short piece (under 500 words) by writers such as Carol Bruneau, J.J. Lee and Waubgeshig Rice.
The flash fiction could be about pretty much anything, so long as it was inspired by the paintings, which are described in the foreword as an invitation to the “viewer to dream.” It’s a good range of gorgeous images, too, with everything from the instantly recognizable stark blue lakes and icebergs Lawren S. Harris painted to lesser-known pastoral scenes by A.Y. Jackson and Emily Carr.
And, while you might expect a lot of peaceful communing with nature on the page, a surprising number of the written pieces are actually dark tales of conflict and danger — forest fires, mining accidents, boat thieves and murderous plots in the woods. Nina Munteanu, a Canadian ecologist and science-fiction writer, takes J.E.H. MacDonald’s “Lake O’Hara” in a novel direction in “Alien Landscape” by reimagining it as a refuge for a space heroine fleeing a world that had destroyed nature in pursuit of progress and ended in post-apocalyptic chaos.
Other contributions are more literal, and see writers engaging more directly with the paintings as objects, such as Mireille Silcoff’s “Vernissage,” which imagines a character’s experiences at a Group of Seven exhibition that includes Edwin Holgate’s “Tree Stump by the Lake” and Tamas Dobozy’s “Radiant Grey” — a meditation on Tom Thomson’s “Grey Day in the North.” Nina Shoroplova imagines a character finding the “light within” thanks to Emily Carr’s “Sombreness Sunlit” in a story of the same name.
This puts the viewer in the driver’s seat, so to speak. Just as the writers were invited “to dream” about these paintings and come up with fresh ideas as to their meaning, so too are the readers of “The Group of Seven Reimagined.” Take a leisurely flip through this gorgeous coffee-table picture book and let your imagination run wild as you stumble upon, say, J.E.H. MacDonald’s “Mist Fantasy, Northland” — a rich image of canoes resting on a windy fall day at a lake. Then see what Oakville-based novelist Michael Mirolla came up with.
It’s a lovely book — and an invitation to take a moment and indulge in a little reimagination of your own. What better way to celebrate the Group of Seven’s 100th birthday?
***
The Group of Seven Reimagined, Edited by Karen Schauber
James M Fisher,
The Miramichi Reader - October 22, 2019
There’s a very good reason that as I write this, The Group of Seven Reimagined, Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings is sitting at, or near the top of bestseller lists in Canada (currently #3 on the Canadian Art bestseller list at Amazon.ca). The result is a most attractive book that any lover of art and literature would enjoy, even if they already have more than a passing familiarity with the iconic Group of Seven. All the stories that accompany each image are in the “flash fiction” style, just a page or two in length, a little story that the authors were inspired to write after choosing a particular G7 painting.
As editor Karen Schauber states in the book’s foreword:
“Flash fiction writers from across Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia,
each with a distinct Canadian connection, have crafted an original flash fiction piece
inspired by a Group of Seven painting, a selection of their own choosing,
one that speaks to and moves them on a personal level.
Each painting singular; each voice, unique.”
The twenty-one pieces of art are beautifully reproduced on high-quality paper stock and preface each story, each image getting a complete page, which art enthusiasts will appreciate. The collection starts off with New Brunswick writer Mark Anthony Jarman (author of Knife Party at the Hotel Europa) and includes other writes such as Carol Bruneau (A Circle on the Surface), Waubgeshig Rice (Moon of the Crusted Snow), Bretton Loney (Rebel With a Cause: The Doc Nikaido Story), Michael Mirolla (author and publisher, Guernica Editions), and editor Karen Schauber (she takes the cover image for her inspiration), just to name a few.
Here’s an authorized excerpt from Ms. Schauber’s story, “The Little Island.”
When she first saw the painting [Little Island by Alfred J. Casson], she was gobsmacked;
her pale-grey eyes, wild and electric. The Little Island was a paradise.
She imagined herself strolling along its shoreline, warm sand, pebbles, and driftwood.
She’d sit a while under the large Beech tree, its pointed buds unfolding. A sudden whoosh,
the drumbeat of wings, a sandhill crane crosses the lake, its shadow gracing the
pink granite below.
That gives you a little taste of what you can expect from the contents and how they inspire the writer; revealing any more would spoil this particular story! Other writers put the reader right inside the painting. Given the space for a story of just a few hundred words in length to work with, they manage to craft some amazing flash fiction.
Here’s a closer look at the Table of Contents. No doubt there are other writers listed which you will recognize:
___
___
A wonderful idea, perfectly implemented, and as I mentioned at the outset, this is a book that any art and/or fiction enthusiast would enjoy receiving as a gift, but with the caveat that this book is not a critical review of the Group of Seven, nor is it a history of the group. What The Group of Seven Reimagined is though is a perfect melange of art and literature, and no doubt there will be further editions of this type of compilation. In fact, The Group of Seven Reimagined is Part One of a Two-Part program.
You can read more about it here: https://groupofsevenflashfiction.weebly.com/ and there’s an interview with editor Karen Schauber here: https://mandyevebarnett.com/2019/08/27/author-interview-karen-schauber/
I am adding The Group of Seven Reimagined to the 2020 long list for “The Very Best!” Book Awards for Best Short Fiction.
“As a disciple of the Group of Seven and an aficionado of Canadian wilderness,
every page gives me a little leap of pleasure.” — Robert Bateman
James M Fisher,
The Miramichi Reader
Independent Book Reviews for Independent Readers
https://miramichireader.ca/2019/10/group-seven-reimagined/
The Group of Seven Reimagined, Edited by Karen Schauber
Heritage House Publishing
*Please note if you choose to purchase this book through Amazon using the link below I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you cannot see the Amazon ad below (if you are using an ad blocker, for instance) here is the link: https://amzn.to/2qAEs44 Thanks!