The sudden snowfall yesterday morning may have slowed them down but it didn't stop five Vancouver writers and their support team from convening at the W2 Media Cafe to work on their contribution to the international 24 Hour Book Project. Spearheaded by Spread the Word, a London, UK writers' development organization, this experiment in collaborative writing involved writers and editors in London, Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, and Vancouver and resulted in the novel Leap, published earlier this morning.
Yes, you read that correctly. The book was written yesterday by 29 writers around the world and was published as an e-book this morning.
Each city was responsible for one character and through digital means they were able to collaborate with each other to ensure that the end result was not a jumbled mess. Accepting the challenge for Vancouver were Arley McNeney, Alyx Dellamonica, Alex Leslie, McKinley M. Hellenes, and Jenn Farrell. From about 7:30 am until 3 pm they planned, talked, and wrote.
(clockwise from top left): McKinley M. Hellenes and Alex Leslie were two of the writers who got together before 8 a.m. yesterday to start writing the Vancouver parts of the novel Leap; Sean Cranbury kept on top of the communication between the project's sister cities and London HQ; early insights into the Vancouver character, Win. (photos by liisa hannus)
Sean Cranbury, the Vancouver organizer for this challenging endeavour and the man behind the W2 Real Vancouver Writers' Series, Books on the Radio, and the Advent Book Blog, described how Vancouver became involved in the project.
"The Vancouver participation came about as a result of a conversation between Laura Byspalko, the Managing Director of Vancouver's Indian Summer Festival, and Ben Payne, who is a director at London's Ministry of Stories. Ben had mentioned to Laura the idea of an international collaborative writing project and had asked her whether she knew anyone in Vancouver who might be able to organize some writers in order to participate. Laura connected Ben and (me) via email.
"This is exactly the type of project that the W2 and the Real Vancouver Writers' Series is designed to attract and participate in. Digital makes us global citizens in many ways and connects us all in new and interesting ways. Instead of looking east for connections, community or recognition we can look in every direction for new influences and inspiration."
Each writer was responsible for a particular scene involving Win. Part of the collaborative process included a Google chat with a couple of the writers in Delhi.
Most of the writers have been involved in the Real Vancouver Writers' Series, Cranbury said.
"Only Alyx Dellamonica hadn't participated in one of our events before but we had met last year at the Surrey International Writers Conference and I had just interviewed her at Calabria about her new book so I asked her if she'd like to participate and she agreed.
"By that point we had 5 really great writers plus me and I figured that was enough talent to do some damage on the world stage."
Real Vancouver Writers' Series team member Dina Del Bucchia was on hand to offer support and act as an onsite Wikipedia of all things fashion and culture related. She talked to each of the writers about the scenes they were working on in order to give the London editors plot updates. The Vancouver writers are Alyx Dellamonica (top left), McKinley M. Hellenes (top right), Arley McNeney (centre), Alex Leslie (bottom left), and Jenn Farrell (bottom right).
Asked if it was intentional that the writers are all women, Cranbury replied that it "just happened."
"I had asked a few guys whether they'd like to join the group but none could agree when it came down to it. The guys all thought that it was a good idea but other things like a strict aversion to collaborative writing, other writing projects or something called 'work' got in the way.
"I wouldn't change it. Our Vancouver team kicked ass."
Zoë Olver and Karen McAthy of the W2 Media Cafe kept the Vancouver team fueled and sustained from before 8 am until 3 pm. This included smoked salmon delicacies. Revived by caffeine, Easter Creme eggs and crunchy snacks, the writers continued.
International collaborations like this are important for Vancouver, Cranbury said.
"This project creates new connections and new relationships between writers that would not have happened otherwise. It creates a kind of new context for what a writer can do and how they can operate when using digital technologies which, as we all know, do not care for territorial limitations.
"It is up to us to use our imagination and to continue to cultivate the relationships that we created yesterday. We now have friends in London, Delhi and Kuala Lumpur. We have fellow writers with whom we have shared an interesting creative experience in those cities. How can we get to know them better? How can we help share their work and strengthen the connections between us?"
As the afternoon continued, the writers worked hard to tie everything together before the deadline. By 3 pm the Vancouver team had written 18,000 words.
Cranbury can already see the long-term effects of the project.
"Can I envision a moment when writers from these cities share the stage at a Real Vancouver Writers' event at W2? Yes I can. We can share the experience of our writing and our writers across oceans and time zones to new audiences. I'm hoping that we can partner with our friends at the Indian Summer Festival to create an event that shares the work of young writers from India with Vancouver.
"We have a huge opportunity to build something really interesting here and I'm honoured to be a part of it."
Leap can be downloaded as a pdf now from Spread the Word, with a Kindle version to be released soon.
