Mark Frutkin

Zen and the art of the word...and tap dancing. No really, all my work is involved, not only with character and plot but language as well, for I love language, its lilt and tilt and sway. I read everything by: Beckett, Joyce, Conrad, Garcia Marquez, Ondaatje, Don McKay (Canadian poet), Billy Collins, Li Po, Tu Fu, Basho, Su Tung Po and other Japanese and Chinese traditional poets. I could go on and on, and will. I'm also a Buddhist and meditator, not that I write about that but it infuses everything I write. I've taught creative writing at University of Ottawa, Carleton University, and about five other schools. I studied with Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure and Robert Duncan at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado in summer, 1976. A life-changing event for me and my writing. I also read everything by Pema Chodron, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. I write everything: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, government speeches, high tech bumpf for marketing but I always do it from the point of view of storytelling. There's always a story to tell. That's why I love history -- history is nothing but stories.