Well That's Cool

Hello fellow isolators!

Welcome to a special season-ending bonus episode. It is March 17th today, which makes it one year since a state of public health emergency was declared here in Alberta. That’s right, one year of COVID quarantines, a year with an overarching sense of fear (among other feelings), and a year quite different from those we’ve experienced before. I started this podcast about a week after we all started working from home. It’s a weird feeling of almost not being able to remember what that was like, as well as thinking it was only yesterday.

I thought I would start a little project where I talked with cool people about cool things they were doing as a way to practice some podcasting, connect with people outside my apartment, and keep me busy through what was supposed to be a short disruption. Well a year later and I think the show has done just that, so it is a fitting time to wrap things up and take a break for a while. But, before I do, I wanted to have one more conversation with someone who has experienced at least part of this year doing something most of us could hardly imagine doing in a good year, let alone in the middle of a pandemic.

In this special bonus episode, I talk with Edmonton’s own cyclocross star, Sidney McGill. Sidney had just come back from a winter riding bikes in Belgium, and I wanted to know more about racing in a pandemic, how her sport changed with COVID precautions, and how exactly a young Canadian takes part in elite world-level events.

If you want to learn more about Sidney’s riding life, follow her on Instagram @SidneyMcGill. You can also learn more about her teams and sponsorships with Pedalhead Bicycle Works and Liv Cycling.

And that about wraps up Season 1 of the Well That’s Cool podcast. I’ve had a great time taking you with me as we explored stories from the Netherlands, Scotland, and now Belgium, as well as life on the road with Engelbert Humperdink. I also want to thank the five authors who joined me live this fall and winter for the Book Club series, as well as the two who talked with me about writing with autism and making Mennonites funny.

It has been a crazy year, and this podcast has been a distraction, a motivator, and just a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed the adventure too, and I’d love to hear what you thought about it. You can reach out to me by email at [email protected] and I’m also on Facebook or on Twitter. I don’t have solid plans for a season 2 yet, but feel free to send me a suggestion and I may pop back into your feeds occasionally this spring as the fancy takes me.

In the meantime, I’m still making my model airplane kits, trying to read more regularly, and now thanks to Sidney I’m thinking of putting the wheels back on the road and stretching the cycling legs as the temperatures are rising. I may not be getting muddy and tearing up the local park like Sidney does, but I love that feeling of freedom and exploring that comes with pushing on the pedals. We’ve all been cooped up inside for a long time, why don’t you join me for a ride sometime, wherever you are, and get some much needed and very soothing fresh air. That’s my plan for getting out of this pandemic winter!

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! And as we count down the days of final week of people experiencing first-time pandemic birthdays, stay well, and happy isolation reading!

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Well That’s Cool podcast!

One of the things about this podcast’s origin was I didn’t really know what it was going to become. I started the show as a way to talk with cool people doing cool things during the pandemic. As the fall and winter of 2020 came around, things naturally evolved into a Zoom book club, a monthly chance for me to talk with authors, poets, and people working in the literary sphere. Let’s face it, those people are cool, and they’re pretty decent at communicating, since it is their day job. I hosted five club meetings and was very happy to have a small but mighty regular virtual audience join me, making the episode recordings both a fun time with friends and a cool way to keep the podcast going. As we’re heading towards one year living with this pandemic, and one year since I started this podcast, and with the temperature rising and people starting to find ways to live a bit more normally again, I’ve started thinking about wrapping up Season 1 and taking a break from the Well That’s Cool idea. We’ve had some great book club meetings, and they were – I hope – a useful and fulfilling activity for both the attendees and you listeners during the dark winter months.

To wrap up Season 1, I decided to have one more conversation with an author, this time with someone who spends his time satirizing my very family history. If you listened to some of my earlier episodes you’ll know I spent a few weeks in 2019 traveling to Scotland to find out more about my mom’s side of the family tree. Well, part of my dad’s are Mennonites, coming to Canada most recently from the Ukraine, or what was then the Russian Empire, and going further back through Prussia and the Netherlands. I was also raised attending a Mennonite church and I have many Mennonite friends across Canada and the US, so it’s been an important identifier for me growing up, maybe even more ingrained than my interest in and connection with Scottish history that started a few years ago.

For my guest on this episode, Andrew Unger, author of Once Removed and the man behind the website The Daily Bonnet, satirizing Mennonites comes from a deep family and personal connection to the Mennonite experience as well. His writing features more Mennonite references than I can catch, his subjects cover all aspects of Mennonite life through the ages and into today. Using that Mennonite history and culture that shaped his perspective of the world as a lens to look back on Mennonites and look at the outside world provides him with ample material to draw on, and a great opportunity to share a chuckle with Mennonites – and everyone else – along the way.

In our conversation, we explore Mennonite history and culture, how to write (and teach) satire, just why his character Timothy Heppner is fighting to preserve heritage, and how articles about Mennonite sex positions are not as controversial as you may think!

My thanks to Andrew Unger for talking with me about all things Mennonite, as well as his writing and approach to satire. I really enjoyed both my conversation and his novel Once Removed as a way to connect with and laugh alongside a part of my family story and my own identity. As Andrew mentioned, you can find his work at AndrewUnger.com or at dailybonnet.com.

Now I said off the top that this interview was going to wrap up Season 1, but I actually have one more special episode left, which will drop on the one year anniversary of the first lockdown restrictions coming into effect here in Alberta. The first case was reported on March 5th, but on March 17, when total cases had already reached 97, the province declared a state of public health emergency. You know the rest of the story, it’s been a year to remember since then, or a year to forget I guess. At times it feels like the longest year, and at times I am amazed that a full year has already passed. To…commemorate? Acknowledge? I dunno, on the one-year anniversary of these restrictions, I’ll release the season-ending bonus episode. I’m going to talk with someone from right here in Edmonton who spent a good chunk of this winter in Europe, doing some pretty amazing things with large groups of other people. It’s getting back to the podcast’s roots: talking with cool people doing cool things, and I think the difference from our lives this year will be an interesting one. So watch for that episode coming next week and find out who did what!

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! And as we count down the days of final week of people experiencing first-time pandemic birthdays, stay well, and happy isolation reading!

Hello fellow isolators, and welcome to the fifth edition of the Well That’s Cool Book Club!

For our February meeting, we had the first poet to make a special guest appearance at the Well That’s Cool Book Club. Jenna Butler is more than just a poet, however, she is also an essayist, professor, and organic farmer.  Jenna’s writing includes the poetry collections Seldom Seen Road, Wells, and Aphelion; a collection of ecological essays, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail; and the travelogue Magnetic North: Sea Voyage to Svalbard. Revery: A Year of Bees, is her latest work, and features essays about beekeeping, climate grief, and trauma recovery. It is now out from Wolsak and Wynn.

In this episode, Jenna and I talked about poetry, prose, emotion, writing as social justice, farming, climate change, and publishing. It was quite the discussion, one that helped me understand poetry and its role in conveying different messages, from hope for the future in a challenging world to the experience of watching the summer solstice. Our conversation really brought forward the passion Jenna has for her work and the world around her, something I think you’ll hear throughout the episode.

Jenna’s recommendations to the live audience included Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree.

Thanks again to Jenna Butler for bringing such passion and interesting experiences to the Book Club this month. I loved hearing about those direct, personal experiences dealing with and taking action against climate change, as well as nerding out on poetic Svalbard adventures. I know a number of the club’s members this month went right out and bought copies of Jenna’s work, and if you want to learn more you can find them at jennabutler.com.

For me, I’m halfway through Once Removed by Andrew Unger (more on that below) and have started Spitfire by John Nichol. This is a history book about “Britain’s greatest warplane” that jumps through the story of the Spit with little vignettes and excerpts about the people who worked on and flew the great airplane. I’m not sure I can define the style of popular history, it really does seem like Nichol put all the little bits he could find in archives together independently rather than using them to put a narrative together like you might expect. It’s not a bad effect, and nice to be able to read in short chunks. What are you reading these days? You can send me a recommendation on Facebook or on Twitter, or by sending me an email at [email protected].

As for this podcast, it is amazing to think I put out the first episode 11 months ago, back at the end of March 2020. This show was going to be my little experiment in podcasting for fun, finding cool people doing cool things and sharing their stories with cool people like you. When I started I really didn’t know where this COVID thing would go, how bad it would affect me personally or the people around me, and how our lives would be shaped by it in the weeks, months, or, worst case, years to come. We’re almost a full year in now and here in Alberta things have been…well not amazing but not the worst in the world. I’m very lucky personally not to have experienced medical issues, but am definitely feeling the impacts of the isolation and lack of socializing that came with everything. The way this podcast evolved into a book club this fall helped connect with friends and keep that curiosity flowing through the dark winter weeks.

But what next? Well, future plans and interest in hobbies have fluctuated just about as much the temperature this week or our moods this year. With a year fast approaching since the first Well That’s Cool episode was published, I’m going to wrap up season one next month. I’m really excited to have one last author interview to share with you, I’ll be talking with Andrew Unger about his Mennonite satire at the Daily Bonnet and his new novel Once Removed (I’m loving it so far and can’t wait to ask him all about it!). Watch for that season finale episode in early March. I’ll be taking the break to get back to my half-finished model airplane kit, dusting off my typewriter, catching up on work, obviously, and actually doing some of the reading I keep promising myself. After a breather I’ll also be looking at some new ideas, either for a season two or a new show experiment, so watch this space. We are a year in and can all use a break, but I will miss putting together these book club meetings and episodes for you. If you want to take up the torch and host your own club, don’t forget to send me an invite!

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Until next time, stay well, and happy isolation reading!

Hello fellow isolators, and welcome to the fourth edition of the Well That’s Cool Book Club, and our first meeting of 2021! Things are getting cold here in Edmonton so what better time to curl up with a good book and get reading? Or in this case, to get on Zoom with some friends new and old to talk about books!

In this episode, I talk with author and communications scholar, C.J. Lavigne. C.J.’s debut novel, In Veritas, was published in May 2020 and is already getting rave reviews. This novel explores the nature of truth and the complexities of human communication, all within a rich and imaginative fantasy version of Ottawa and with a character who experiences synesthesia.

Our conversation explored writing speculative fiction (which, as I found out, is an umbrella term for lots of work you might call fantasy or “genre”), how In Veritas was constructed over eight years, and how Verity’s world of synesthesia and a magic-adjacent Ottawa shapes C.J.’s exploration of human communication.

There was a LOT of book talk in this episode as well, including some great questions from our virtual audience. Just some of the titles C.J. mentioned include Premee Mohamad's Beneath the Rising, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic, and Sarah Gailey's The Echo Wife, along with C.L. Clark's The Unbroken and Tamsyn Muir's Alecto the Ninth.

As for my monthly reading update, along with finishing the last few chapters of In Veritas, I’m halfway through The Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris, a book my mom gave me for Christmas, but with the temperatures dropping here in Edmonton I might need to pull out another Antarctic exploration book to brush up my cold-weather survival skills. I’ve got a biography of Roald Amundsen looking pretty good for that!

Do you have any new year reading recommendations for me, or any good books you got for Christmas? You can get in touch with the podcast on Facebook at wellthatscoolpod or on Twitter at @well_thatscool, or by sending me an email at [email protected]. 

I am excited to announce that the Book Club is getting extended into February! Join me on February 18 at 8 pm Mountain Time for a conversation with poet, environmentalist, professor, farmer, traveller, and writer Jenna Butler. We’ll be talking about everything from bee keeping to boating in Svalbard – it could be one of the biggest episodes yet! Register here.

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast. 

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Until next time, stay well, and happy isolation reading! 

Hello isolators! It’s me, Ben Fast, with another bonus mini episode!

I’ve been talking with authors a lot on the podcast recently. In the first episode of the Book Club series I’m running this winter, one of the live studio audience members was herself a writer. Keara Farnan is the author of I Only See in Black & White, a memoir about living with autism and the way that shapes her experiences in everyday life.

I know a little bit about autism from my work in museum education, I was fortunate enough to run a sensory-friendly event at the Copperbelt Railway and Mining Museum in Whitehorse back in 2016. At that event I learned a lot about how autism and other sensory spectrum disorders challenge how people of all ages interact with the world around them. I know some great educators here in Alberta or back in my home province of BC who are making those museum spaces and programs welcoming to people who may not experience their environment the same way you or I do.

But with that said, I’ve rarely actually talked with someone who lives with autism, or who can communicate that life and their own experiences in a way that makes sense to me, let alone who has written a book about it. Keara was happy to talk with me about her life and writing the book, and I’m excited to play it for you here.

My thanks to Keara Farnan for talking with me about her book, I Only See in Black & White. Here in Canada it is estimated that 1 in 66 children are on the autistic spectrum, with 50,000 autistic teens yearly losing support as they move out of school and into adulthood. There is much that is misunderstood about living with autism and it was great to hear Keara’s book is having an impact by sharing her story. If you want to get a copy for yourself, or for someone you know, visit Keara’s website at kearafarnan.com, or search for I Only See in Black & White on Amazon.

There are lots of cool things coming with the podcast, including the next Book Club meeting with special guest CJ Lavigne on January 21. Visit benfast.ca/cool for more info. Until next time, thanks for listening to this bonus episode, a Happy New Year to you all, and stay well out there!

Hello fellow isolators! I hope you are all doing well on this strange Christmas Eve. I know many people are not seeing family or having to change plans to keep everyone safe, as well as dealing with new restrictions in some provinces. As these played out in mid-December, it seemed another perfect time to have a second socially-distant book club meeting! As usual, I was joined by a special guest and a live studio audience on Zoom for an evening talking about reading, stories, and all things books.

A quick note: Normally I host these book club meetings from my home in Edmonton, but this episode is a bit special. I have travelled home to BC and I recorded this interview during some time in self-isolation in a very cute little tiny home in Campbell River. This is not just a vacation: I made the trip to help my mom move (and will be working remotely from here for a month), so I did my utmost to travel safely and stay healthy. I would like to acknowledge that I hosted this live podcast interview as a visitor on the traditional territories of the Laich-Kwil-Tach, Klahoose, and K’omoks First Nations. 

Thank you to the live virtual studio audience who have signed on a bit earlier than normal for this event, it was good to see you and good to connect as our provinces go into stricter phases of restrictions across Canada to help stop the rapid rise of COVID-19.

I was very excited to talk with my third guest on the Well That’s Cool Book Club, Mark Zuehlke. I have had the chance to meet Mark a few times over the past 7 or so years, including at book releases, talks, and when he was a guest speaker for a course I was taking at UVic. Mark is an award-winning author generally considered to be Canada’s foremost popular military historian. His 14-book Canadian Battle Series is the most exhaustive recounting of the battles and campaigns fought by any nation during World War II to have been written by a single author. In recognition of his contribution to popularizing Canadian history, Mark was awarded the 2014 Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media: The Pierre Berton Award. He is also an award-winning mystery writer, a battlefield tour historian, and a former journalist! 

My conversation with Mark explored three areas of his work: the life and work of a popular military history writer, the process of writing Canadian battlefield histories, and some of the stories he’s discovered over the years. Mark recommended a couple good memoirs of Canadian soldiers who became well-known writers after the war, including Farley Mowat’s And No Birds Sang as well as George Blackburn’s The Guns of Normandy and The Guns of Victory.

My thanks again to Mark Zuehlke for talking with the small but regular group of Book Club members this month. If you want to learn more about Mark and his Canadian Battle Series or other writing, visit Zuehlke.ca. 

That’s it for the Well That’s Cool Book Club for this year! That’s right, we’ve made it to the end of 2020! I’ll be back for another book club meeting on January 21 at 8:00 p.m. Mountain Time for a conversation with speculative fiction writer and author of In Veritas, C.J. Lavigne. You can register for that meeting here.

As for the latest update on my reading list, I’ve temporarily dropped A History of Scotland by Neil Oliver and just finished History of the Glider Pilot Regiment by Claude Smith. This was a really hardcore history with lots of regimental information and not too much action, though those parts were best when they came around. What a crazy bit of military history! Now I am back to a light sci-fi read with The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi. It is the second book in The Interdependency series and I listened to the first one as an audiobook read by Wil Wheaton. The audio book was good enough, but I think I’m enjoying reading it without an excited Wesley Crusher doing all the voices!

Do you have any new year reading recommendations for me, or any good books you got for Christmas? You can get in touch with the podcast on Facebook at wellthatscoolpod or on Twitter at @well_thatscool, or by sending me an email at [email protected]. 

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast. 

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Until next time, stay well, and happy isolation reading! 

Hello fellow isolators! I hope you are all doing well this fall. It is sad and a bit scary to see how the numbers of new infections for this virus we’re all trying to avoid are climbing around the world again, especially here in Alberta where I live and in my home province of BC. So, what better time to have a second socially-distant book club meeting?

As usual, I was joined by a special guest and a live studio audience on Zoom for an evening talking about reading, stories, and all things books: Alyssa Polinsky, my friend and former boss. Alyssa and I worked together for a year when she came in and covered a parental leave when I worked with the BC Museums Association. We had a great time working together, starting new programs for the sector and eating far too much chocolate, she really was a bad influence on me.

Alongside being a great supervisor, Alyssa is also a great communicator, which is actually what she does for a living. Alyssa is a freelance communications consultant who is currently Acting Director of Communications for the Greater Victoria Public Library. She is also on the Board of the Story Studio Writing Society, a charity that inspires, educates and empowers youth through storytelling and that received the Council of the Federation Literacy Award for BC in 2020. Alyssa is also the President of the Victoria Book Prizes, the organization that annually awards the best adult and children’s books created by a Victoria-based writer.

My conversation with Alyssa explored how storytelling helps youth find their voice, which builds confidence and presence in their community. We also talked about how to pick a good book, which is key to the multi-genre Victoria Book Prizes, but how it means something different to each reader.

The books Alyssa recommended are:

Dear Evelyn by Kathy Page

A Complicated Kindness and All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Sweetland by Michael Crummey

Can We All Be Feminists? edited by June Eric-Udorie

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Thanks again to Alyssa Polinsky for joining me for the second meeting of the Well That’s Cool Book Club. It was great to re-connect on a personal level, I miss our chats, and even more fun to hear all about her reading and views on the importance of storytelling.

If you want to learn more about the organizations we discussed, visit StoryStudio.ca and VictoriaBookPrizes.ca, or visit Alyssa on Instagram at @redheadreader.

I hope you’ll join me again on December 10 for the next club meeting. I’ll be talking with Mark Zuehlke, an award-winning author generally considered to be Canada’s foremost popular military historian. Mark’s Canadian Battle Series, which you’ve likely seen in your local book store, is the most exhaustive recounting of the battles and campaigns fought by any nation during World War 2 to have been written by a single author! I’ll be asking Mark what it’s like to write about such detailed and yet expansive history, how research shapes non-fiction writing, and about what makes him also an award-winning mystery writer. You can register for the conversation here. Also note the slightly earlier time, Mark will be joining me at 6:30 p.m. Mountain Time on December 10.

As for books I’m reading, I’m still working my way through A History of Scotland by Neil Oliver, and I think I might pick up a science fiction read for my next book like Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja. The Oliver book is slow going - I can’t help reading it in the voice of the great TV presenter himself, but get a bit hung up on the Scottish phrasing and the confusing web of Scottish royal characters - but I am enjoying it and have finally reached the Mary Queen of Scots episode. That era is one of my favourites, which you can see here.

Do you have any book recommendations for me? You can get in touch with the podcast on Facebook at wellthatscoolpod or on Twitter at @well_thatscool, or by sending me an email at [email protected].

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Speaking of which, the show is now available on Spotify and Google Podcasts!

Until next time, stay well, and happy isolation reading!

Vancouver-based young adult fantasy author Rachael Bell-Irving joined the first meeting of the Well That’s Cool Book Club on October 22 for a discussion about writing her first book, discovering the ins and outs of the publishing industry, and developing the characters of a six-book series arc.

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Hey isolaters! This podcast is the product of our ongoing pandemic, an idea developed during the dark days of late winter in snowy, cold Edmonton. Well, it snowed once again here this week and so winter is back in full force. With a 15 degree drop in temperature I must admit I have very little interest in going outside these days, and instead I’ve wanted to curl up with a book and get some distraction time in. What better setting than that for the first meeting of the Well That’s Cool Book Club?

As a reader, I tend to alternate between non-fiction history books and throwaway science fiction for fun. It’s the outcome of studying history for five years and working in museums for another five since, as well as a smash up of my interest in exploration and space. While reading fiction especially, I often wonder how an author can create such long and intricate storylines, develop characters that are so otherworldly, and keep it all together across a series. As a podcaster, I have the perfect platform to find out!

And thus, the book club was born, an idea to bring friends together and share what we’re reading in isolation combined with a time to talk with an author or someone from the wider literary community to learn more about this sector that inspires such curiosity and creativity. I’m very fortunate to know some published authors and to have friends as interested in books as I am who were keen to join me on Thursday night, October 22, for a live podcast recording to kick off this new series. And it is a series, I’m excited to announce a line up through January with more coming in the new year, more on that at the end of the episode.

My special guest for the first book club meeting was Vancouver-based young adult fantasy author Rachael Bell-Irving. Her debut novel, Demons at the Doorstep, was published in January this year. Rachael joined me by Zoom to share her process writing the book, her journey to self-publishing, and what she has in store for the next five books in the series. A big thanks also to the live virtual studio audience who asked some questions at the end of our chat.

Thanks again to Rachael Bell-Irving for starting the Well That’s Cool Book Club with her fantastical writing and experience. After our conversation, Rachael and our studio audience continued chatting about books, sharing what we’re reading these days and more about our reading styles and interests. I just finished The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, a popular book club read that I found interesting enough to keep me reading but strange enough to keep me wondering why I was reading it. Rachael’s recommendations were A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab for magic, fantasy, and some darkness, as well as Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibanez for its vivid setting and strong young adult heroine.

If you want to learn more about Rachael’s writing and keep up with what she’s reading in the coming months, visit her website at www.rbellirving.ca or find her on social media @rbellirving. You can get your copy of Demons at the Doorstep on Amazon.

I hope you’ll me for a future Well That’s Cool Book Club event. I’m excited to announce the lineup of special guests through to January, with more for 2021 being confirmed soon! Join me on November 12 at 8:00 p.m. Mountain Time as I talk about educating and empowering youth through storytelling and how you pick an award-winning book with Alyssa Polinsky, board member of Story Studio Writing Society and President of the Victoria Book Prizes. On December 10th I’ll be talking with Canada’s foremost popular military historian, Mark Zuehlke, who is also an award-winning mystery writer. And in January, I’ll be learning about speculative fiction with C.J. Lavigne, author of In Veritas. Learn more about my guests and find links to register for future meetings at benfast.ca/cool/bookclub.

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast.

You can get in touch with the podcast on Facebook or on Twitter. Say hi to the podcast or suggest something you’re curious about by sending me an email at [email protected], and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Until next time, stay well, and happy isolation reading!

Hello isolators. Before we jump in to this episode, I have a quick announcement about a new podcast segment I’m trying out this month. On Thursday October 22, I’m launching the Well That’s Cool book club, a chance for us to get together over Zoom and talk about books and writing and all that fun stuff. Each club meeting I’ll be joined by an author, publisher, teacher, or someone else from the literary field for a conversation about their work in front of a live digital studio audience, and that’s you. After our conversation, the club will share what they are reading, curious about, or even writing themselves. This will be super informal, no advance reading required, and totally free. I hope you’ll join me and my first guest, young adult fantasy author Rachael Bell-Irving, on Thursday October 22 at 8pm Mountain Time for the first event. Register here and learn about Rachael’s exciting debut novel here. Ok, on with the episode!

As part of my visit to Scotland in September 2019, I visited some of the nation’s top museums, galleries, and cultural attractions, trying to learn about what makes Scotland so special, so important to history around the world, and so full of legendary characters. In the last episode, I visited with David Forsyth at the National Museum of Scotland to learn about the objects on display there that tell Scotland’s story of diaspora and industry. The following day I went the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, a beautiful red sandstone neo-gothic palace designed as a shrine for Scotland’s heroes and heroines.

The building opened in 1889 as the world’s first purpose-built portrait gallery. I wanted to see the people Scotland views as representatives of the nation, the historical figures that shaped the direction and identity of the Scottish people. I also know that portrait galleries can be some of the more progressive, challenging cultural organizations because of who they show, so I was curious to see what modern and contemporary stories were on display.

Because of my inability to read Edinburgh’s bus maps and schedules – I still blame the jetlag – I arrived to my tour late, which meant I only had limited time with my guide, Deputy Director & Chief Curator of Portraiture Imogen Gibbon. With the clock ticking before Imogen was off to a meeting, she whisked me through the galleries, still managing to show me quite a few highlights on our walk, even with the shorter time.

Because I was late, I abandoned my line of rigid, structured questions about portraits and their role telling history and instead just went along for the ride, which probably meant Imogen could show me much more than I expected, even while we walked up stairs! And because of that, I think it’s best you do the same, so here is my visit, complete and mostly un-edited. Oh, and if you want to follow along with the floorplan, see below. I hope you enjoy the tour!

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is still closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you want to see some of the items Imogen Gibbon is showing me, look below or explore what’s on at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, but know it’s a sad replacement to seeing them in-person. The Gallery is set to re-open sometime this fall as part of the National Galleries of Scotland’s staged re-opening plans, so make sure to check on that status if you’re nearby soon.

Face masks and coverings are, of course, part of the gallery visiting experience now, but they are also part of the way we mark the pandemic through visuals on our faces. We may recognize friends by what design they have on their masks, mine is a van Gogh painting for example, or we may have seen images of people with masks that we can immediately place as part the timeline of the last seven months.

The National Galleries of Scotland has had at least two major interactions with masks including a partnership this September with North Edinburgh Arts to commission and distribute face coverings with four works from the national collection to workers at seven local charities and commissioning local couturier and designer Frank Francia to design 500 coverings for the Galleries’ staff, as well as a public appeal in July for stories, portraits and ideas that will be displayed along with portraits from the national collection in a display titled You Are Here | 2020: Stories, Portraits, Visions (see the September 10 and July 27 press releases for more info here). I’m sure plenty of those submissions will feature masks in some way, and hope to see some great submissions in 2021!

So it turns out portraiture is a complex, rich, intersectional artform. In Scotland, portraiture tells the story of a vibrant history, a proud people, and links those figures from centuries ago to today’s society in intricate, varied ways. What you think may just be a head and shoulders painting can actually be photography, sculpture, mosaics, and even pieces of the building itself.

The representational and referential portraiture really stood out to me, especially in the temporary exhibition I saw after my walk with Imogen. The Long Look: The Making of a Portrait exhibition was an exploration of portraiture between two artists where painter Audrey Grant asked photographer Norman McBeath to sit for a portrait done in charcoal, a process that would take weeks if not months. Grant then asked McBeath to photograph the drawing at the end of each sitting before erasing the drawing at the start of the next sitting to start the portrait anew. McBeath was interested in the way Grant was working, so started photographing other parts of the process, including her hands, chair and the charcoal itself.

The portrait process, which also featured another portrait of McBeath and two of award-winning crime writer Val McDermid, took two years to complete, and the exhibit displayed the charcoal drawings alongside selections of the photographs and, next to the images, small plastic bags full of the charcoal pieces used each day. The charcoal is, in truth, a portrait as well, but also a tangible marking of the creation of the artwork itself. Looking at this display with its multitude of elements of portraiture really made me think back to the painting of Mary Queen of Scots, and how interesting it would be to have a portrait of the artist at the moment the work was created. What did the brushes look like? How much paint had splashed onto their clothes? What would a portrait of you look like, or of the person making that portrait of you?

I really enjoyed my visit to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, a place I probably would not have added to my list were it not for this podcast. It changed my understanding of portraits, of the importance and the interesting quality. I hope to visit again someday soon, and I hope you will too on your next trip to Scotland. Visit nationalgalleries.org to find all the information about visiting and reopening times for all the National Galleries Scotland locations. My thanks to Imogen Gibbon, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Portraiture for rushing me through the gallery at the start of her busy day. As you can tell, Imogen’s knowledge and passion for the collection makes for some amazing stories. Thanks also to Charlotte Fortt for helping arrange the visit and guiding me through the streets of Edinburgh while I was lost.

Thanks as always to Ron Yamauchi for the theme tune and to Anna Schroeder of Annather Design for the cool podcast logo, check out her work at annatherdesign.com. Other music heard during this episode and all the other podcast stuff is done by me, Ben Fast.

Don’t forget to register for the first meeting of the Well That’s Cool Book Club, featuring a special conversation with author Rachael Bell-Irving. The event starts at 8pm Mountain Time on Thursday, October 22. You can also find a Facebook event, and I’ll be sharing things on Twitter as well. Send me an email at [email protected] if you want to say hi or suggest something you’re curious about, and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

Until next time, thanks for listening and a happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadian listeners out there. Stay well!

Hey isolators! I’ve got some cool news for you: I’m starting a book club! I know, even with a pandemic none of us have really worked through our to-be-read piles, but this isn’t your standard book club. Instead of all of us reading the same book and talking about it, I’m going to host some friends for a little chat about what we’re reading (or not reading) and what we love about books. It’s going to be super casual, once a month through the winter, and as a bonus I’m going to bring in people who know books cover to cover for a conversation to start off each club meeting.

The first meeting of the Well That’s Cool Book Club is going to be on Thursday, October 22, at 8pm Mountain time. My first special guest is going to be Rachael Bell-Irving, a young adult fantasy author based in Vancouver, who released her first book, Demons at the Doorstep in January of this year. The first title in the Wicked Conjuring series is the story of Jessica, a balance keeper of magic, and her journey to uncover the potential threat of powerful magic being unleashed in her city. The book is full of demons, witty banter, magic spells, and deadly sunsets. I’m looking forward to talking with Rachael about creating her world of witch hunters and urban fantasy, as well as the journey from idea to print. You can find out more about the book, and grab a copy for the young adults or older ones in your life, at rbellirving.ca.

After my talk with Rachael, the book club meeting itself starts. Be ready to share what you’re reading, or what you love about books of any type. I welcome all of you to join me on Thursday, October 22, at 8pm Mountain time. To join the club meeting, head to my website benfast.ca/cool or find the link in the shownotes. There’s also an event on Facebook at wellthatscoolpod, and I’ll share the link on twitter at well_thatscool. Crack a book, let your imagination go wild, and I’ll talk with you and Rachael on October 22!