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KEN MCGOOGAN
Canada, Scotland, Arctic 2016

Man in tartan vest invites nonfiction writers to cyber-gathering

November 22, 2014
 
 
Faithful followers of this blog will know that I am reluctant to publish anything that even hints of self-promotion. But with the above quarter-page ad (!) surfacing in today's Globe & Mail, in a good-looking section celebrating the best books of the year, I feel driven to make an exception.  As you can see, thanks to the University of Toronto, starting in January, I will offer a course called The Art of Fact: An Introduction to Writing Nonfiction. It's online, so you can work it into your schedule any time, and get active from any where. The course is all about craft, and telling true stories with panache. You can check it out by clicking here.
At the other end of that link, you will find a brief overview suggesting that the hallmarks of Creative or Narrative Nonfiction are truth and personal presence. The genre includes subjective and objective streams, and encompasses memoir and autobiography. It also takes in biography, history, adventure, travel, true crime, you name it. The writer of nonfiction employs memory, but also imagination, analysis, and research, and adapts literary techniques from fiction, journalism, and the essay. Hope to see you in cyberspace!


Ken McGoogan
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Canadian Geographic celebrates the discovery of Franklin's Erebus

November 04, 2014




The December issue of Canadian Geographic is billed as a "special collector's edition," and rightly so. It is built around the recent discovery of Erebus, the long-lost ship of Sir John Franklin, pictured above on the right. Contributors include John Geiger, Wade Davis, Leona Aglukkaq, Fergus Fleming, Noah Richler, Russell Potter and yours truly. Put it this way: the magazine contains at least a book's worth of reading. To whet your appetite, here is how my own contribution begins . . . 

By Ken McGoogan
The discovery of one of Sir John Franklin’s lost ships reminds us that Canadian history does not exist in a vacuum. It demonstrates that the demise of the 1845 Franklin expedition was far more complex and protracted than we knew. And it vindicates not just the Inuit but also, and equally, the Arctic explorers who charted our northern archipelago while searching for the Royal Navy ships. For Canadians, most of whom live along the American border, the discovery means we have to rewrite a foundational myth that underscores our national identity as a northern people.
Obviously, the story of Franklin and the search he inspired belongs to British history. But that narrative belongs equally to Canadian history, albeit with a different emphasis, if only because so much of it happened in what would later become Canadian territory. Even those chapters that arose elsewhere, because they affected what occurred here, belong to our history
The discovery of the ship demonstrates that the so-called “standard reconstruction” of what happened to the lost expedition has to be radically rewritten. British historians created the original story around the “Victory Point Record,” the only written document ever recovered from the expedition. . . . .
To read the rest, and much else besides, you will have to dash out and buy a copy.  I do mean dash. These puppies will not last long. 
Ken McGoogan
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Before turning mainly to books about arctic exploration and Canadian history, Ken McGoogan worked for two decades as a journalist at major dailies in Toronto, Calgary, and Montreal. He teaches creative nonfiction writing through the University of Toronto and in the MFA program at King’s College in Halifax. Ken served as chair of the Public Lending Right Commission, has written recently for Canada’s History, Canadian Geographic, and Maclean’s, and sails with Adventure Canada as a resource historian. Based in Toronto, he has given talks and presentations across Canada, from Dawson City to Dartmouth, and in places as different as Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Hobart.