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READ ALL OVER -- Margo Lamont

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most. Margo Lamont is a Vancouver-based person who likes to write and is no longer sure if that means stories or calligraphy or maybe both.

She agrees with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) who published health care researcher Joshua Smyth and colleagues’ paper which purports that writing really is good for both your physical and mental health. But don’t tell anyone or it’ll become like eating your broccoli.

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most.
Margo Lamont is a Vancouver-based person who likes to write and is no longer sure if that means stories or calligraphy or maybe both. She is a cofounder and facilitator of The Closet Writers on her worksite, and the Grind Writers group. Grind Writers is for fledgling writers and is not into intense critique, or intense anything, but is into the flow of words and why writing feels so good.space

What’s on your nightstand right now? Are you enjoying it?

Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life.  At last a biography based on the (very sparse) actual facts of her life & reign, and free of Roman spin and exaggeration.  Given that Cleopatra was not, in fact, overly attractive  (judging from the few images extant of her), I’ve always thought it was even more fascinating that she still managed to captivate two of the most powerful  men of her time. This book gives some idea how.  Yes, I’m enjoying it; getting at some part of truth is often enjoyable (unless it’s something like how awful you look in certain jeans you really love.)

Most enjoyable reading? I love going to my hair stylist Candy’s on Dunbar, dropping into her big black naugahyde comfy couch and losing myself in all her wonderful magazine distractions--Hello, People, Us , InTouch,  the Enquirer, et al. Instant relaxation: go figure, Hans Selye.

Is there a genre you prefer? Why?

Nonfiction. I’m not sure why - but as with the Cleopatra biography the truth really is stranger than fiction--and often far more interesting.

Some mystery: I read everything Agatha Christie wrote and sometimes still re-read them. I also read a lot of “New Age” books on healing and things like Lynne McTaggart’s The Bond; Graham Hancock’s Supernatural; Louise Hay’s books and many of the people she publishes through Hay House. I’m interested in the books coming out now about the Zero Point Field and accounts of the voyages of the DMT cosmosnauts.

Who or what is your favourite Vancouver author or story set in Vancouver?

I was recently introduced to Ivan E. Coyote (Missed Her; The Slow Fix; Loose End) in October 2011, at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, where I was fortunate enough to be part of her master class and to take her workshop “Bootcamp for Procrastinators.” I’m ashamed to say that, although I had heard her name, I hadn’t read a line of hers until that conference.  She is amazing - as entertaining and engaging a writer, in performance and on the page, as you could want. What really thrilled me though, is she writes about the working class and has a talent to make that as interesting and poignant as the tales of kings and queens.

Do you read newspapers and if you do, which ones? Online or print, and why?

No, I don’t read the papers. No cable TV. I get my news from CBC Radio: it’s hands-free and eyeballs-free so you can do lots of other things while listening to it - cleaning, cooking, Facebook.  I graze through pubs like The Georgia Straight,  Common Ground  and Shared Vision, and The Vancouver Courier (Geoff Olson is a wonderful writer & cartoonist and always worth the time) …get a bit of news from internet newsgroups and links on Facebook and such. If I see the G&M or the National Post in a coffee shop and I don’t have to pay $3.50 for them and deal with the recycling, I’ll read that.

I also like BC BookWorld for keeping up on the BC writing scene; absolutely excellent. And I read the Federation of BC Writers e-VOX weekly enews, and Bonnie Nish’s enews from Pandora’s Collective.

What books have influenced your life the most?

Freedom in Exile, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s biography, really made an impression. I read that after watching the movie Kundun about his life, and that launched several years of reading about Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, HHDL, the Panchen Lama, The 17th Karmapa, the whole saga of Tibet since the mid-50s; and  a book called Fire Under the Snow by an incredible man called Palden Gyatso; it’s the story of his 30-year internment and extreme torture in Chinese prisons in Tibet, and his survival and personal spiritual triumph. All those have really influenced my life of late.

What is the most cherished item in your library?

I fantasize about getting a Kobo and getting rid of my books. But I love their covers and their art and fonts and paper. I do judge a book by its cover and sometimes I keep them just because I like the so much.

I love my Julia Cameron books (Letter to a Young Artist should be a first-read by all fledgling and emerging writers - and any writers who offer critique, and all elementary and high school teachers who teach English or creative writing).

What’s next on your list?

To read?  Waiting for me at the library right now are:

Kate Levinson’s Emotional Currency: A Woman's Guide to Building A Healthy Relationship with Money, and what shapes one’s relationship with money, and The Writing Cure: How Expressive Writing Promotes Health and Emotional Well-being, which touches on things like expressive writing and blood pressure; emotional expression and expressive writing, and cancer.

Christina Baldwin’s Life’s Journey: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice waits patiently on top of a heap of books on the floor by my bed. And I’m looking forward to getting Keith Richards’ Life pretty soon now (I’m 47 on 44 copies). Did I mention I love junk reading and celebrity biographies?

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

Too numerous to mention. If I could book tutorials with anyone - I’d start with Rob Sawyer; William Gibson; Douglas Coupland. Ivan E. Coyote, of course. Lois Peterson to find out how to be so productive. Mary Renault if she were still alive (again historical fiction). Robert Dugoni; the agent Janet Reid; Diana Gabaldon because she likes to write long and historical fiction; Jack Whyte (historical fiction and because he’s amazing. I would just be satisfied to hear him read more of my work out loud. He can make the phone book sound like sonnets). Susan Juby - she has overcome to much to get where she is and also likes to write long. (This last 5 are often at the Surrey writers conference giving workshops.)  And then there is Tom Wolfe.

My favourite ‘mentors,’ though, are my fellow members in the writers groups (The Closet Writers; Grind Writers) that I facilitate. I’ve learned, and learn, so much there.

Are you a hoarder or an easy lender with books?

My mamma told me, “You’d better shop around.”  No, actually, she said:  “Never a borrower nor a lender be.” It took me a long time to process that because I didn’t like the structural position of that ‘be’ in the sentence -- but once I got over that I also realized I don’t like having to be really really careful when I read.  You know how some people lend you a book and it looks brand new. That’s scary for me. I like to slurp my books up like soup.  I write in them. I star things. I draw various symbols that indicate degrees of veracity or meaningfulness to me. So I don’t like reading borrowed books except the VPL’s.

Your life story is published tomorrow, the title is?

Evolving Slowly: So Much Still to Learn.