MF GALAXY

WHAT MAGAZINES + WEBSITES YOU MUST READ, HOW TO MANAGE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE TO AVOID SABOTAGING YOUR CAREER, WHERE IN YOUR STORY TO START WRITING YOUR SCRIPT, SURPRISING MENTORSHIP BY BIG-NAME WRITERS   LISTEN/DOWNLOAD So many people talk about breaking into comics, New York publishing, or Hollywood, but most of the ones talking haven’t done it, and most of those who’ve done it aren’t talking. Today’s MF GALAXY features people who can walk the talk and talk the walk, and who are going to give you specific, technical advice and steps to take your writing career forward, such as what magazines and websites you must read, how to manage your social media presence to avoid sabotaging your career, what point in your story to start writing your script, and some surprising realities about mentorship by big-name writers. All of this episode’s rising-star writer-creators spoke at a panel called The Writers’ Journey at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con, which despite t...

IS ALL ART IS POLITICAL? SHOULD YOU EVER INSULT YOUR OWN AUDIENCE? CAN YOU SURVIVE SOCIAL MEDIA AS A SOCIAL ARTIST? THE MOST SURPRISING ACT OF PROTEST LISTEN/DOWNLOAD Art and activism—should they be friends? Hanging together like Kirk and Spock, Crockett and Tubbs, or Laverne and Shirley? Or should they be enemies like Luke Cage and Cotton Mouth, Avatar Aang and the Fire Lord, or Donald Trump and most of humanity? Some people say that art and politics should never mix. Other people say that they always mix—but that people only protest those politics when they disagree with them. So if that’s true, what happens to society when people who define themselves as advocates and activists combine their views and ideas with their novels, paintings, plays, and more? Those are questions that novelist SG Wong wanted answered. Wong is the inaugural featured writer of Capital City Press, a venture by the Edmonton Public Library. Wong is the creator of the Lola Starke hardb...

HOW RACISM AND ATHLETICS ARE TACKLING AFRICAN-CANADIAN STUDENTS LISTEN/DOWNLOAD   Because race-based privilege, power, and exploitation are facts of planetary life, almost any society can be expected to maintain mythologies about race. That mythology includes the belief that those who belong to the racial power structure are superior to those who are excluded from that racial power system. Some of the excluded are deemed intellectually equal or potentially superior, but lacking in physical prowess and, for lack of a better term, “natural rhythm.” But then there are other people excluded by the racial power system, and inside the racial mythology, they are deemed intellectually and morally backward, but physically superior. The late Dr. Manning Marable, a Professor of History and Political Science and formerly the Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, discussed in a 1991 column called “Racism and the Bla...

PRE-PUBLICATION TESTING KIDLIT BEFORE AUDIENCES, IMPROV’S SCENE-BUILDING CHEAT CODE, STAY-AT-HOME DAD WRITERS, SMALL-TOWN ALIENATION SCARS FOR LIFE LISTEN/DOWNLOAD Marty Chan is one of E-Town’s most successful writers ever. He’s best known for his popular children’s and young adult books including Keepers of the Vault, Infinity Coil, and the award-winning The Mystery of the Frozen Brains. But he’s also a screenwriter who worked on the TV series Jake and the Kid and received a Gemini nomination for his TV pilot The Orange Seed Myth. Chan's best-known play is the semi-autobiographical Mom, Dad, I’m Living With a White Girl, about the culture clash of being a Chinese-Canadian finding work and love in the arts in Edmonton. The play’s been produced across Canada and in New York. Chan was the first playwright in residence at Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre, Canada’s biggest and busiest regional performing arts centre. In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, Marty Chan discusse...

STRATEGY FOR NO-NONSENSE ACTING, LEGENDARY COMEDY TROUPE THREE DEAD TROLLS IN A BAGGIE, PERCENTAGES GAME OF WRITING + RECORDING THE IRRELEVANT SHOW, MONEY VS POWER IN COMEDY LISTEN/DOWNLOAD If you listen to CBC Radio then you’ve almost certainly heard the comedy of Neil Grahn. He’s been a debater on The Debaters, but he’s best known as one of the sketch comics on and lead writer for The Irrelevant Show. Years ago Grahn was part of a pioneering sketch comedy troupe in Edmonton called Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie which included Cathleen Rootsaert, Wes Borg, and the late Joe Bird, which was briefly a television show. He’s currently the writer/director/producer behind the Gemini Award-winning series Taking It Off, and he’s a documentarian with many films to his credit including one about Amber Valley, one of the earliest African towns in Alberta. He’s constantly busy writing pilots and hustling to put new work into gear. The man is a machine, with plenty of wisdom to s...

THE JOB OF THE NEXT CHAPTER, WHY LIT SHOULDN’T BE ALL BRAN, INTERVIEWING ADVICE PETER GZOWSKI GAVE HER, WHEN TO BUILD RAPPORT WITH GUESTS, WHY IT’S BETTER SHE CAN’T SEE HER GUESTS, THE BEST WAY TO STYLE YOUR VOICE LISTEN/DOWNLOAD If you’re a Canadian who loves books as much as you love radio, then it’s almost a guarantee that legendary broadcaster Shelagh Rogers has been in your life for a long time. Rogers is the host and producer of CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter, Canada’s leading author-interview radio show focusing on indigenous and settler Canadian writers. She started at CBC in 1980, hosting music and current affairs programmes, and working her way up eventually became the permanent guest host on Peter Gzowski’s Morningside, the host of This Morning, and also of Sounds Like Canada. She’s won a range of awards and honourary doctorates, and as a result of her work and advocacy, Native Counseling Services of Alberta gave her their Achievement in the Aborigina...

IS WORK-LIFE BALANCE POSSIBLE IN FILMMAKING? MAKING CREATIVE COMMONS TV, THE ONLY WISE INVESTMENT IN INDIE FILM, THE BEST WAY TO CROWDFUND, SHOOTING SHAMANS IN ULAANBAATAR   LISTEN/DOWNLOAD You ever dream of being a filmmaker? Maybe writing or directing television? Maybe you thought about it and figured that moving to Hollywood was out of the question, or even if you were willing to go, that climbing the ladder in Hollywood was too long a shot? Or even if you were willing to try the long slog, you wouldn’t want men in suits ruining the stories you really want to tell by replacing all your egalitarian ideas with offensive stereotypes, or shoving all your most ingenious character creation, plots, and world-building into a blender to turn them into mass-market pablum? Because it takes millions of dollars to make a movie, which you could never raise on your own? What if I told you that you could stay in your home town or even home country, tell the stories you w...

HOW LEARNING JOHN WARE WAS AFRICAN CHANGED HER LIFE, HOW FOGGO’S EXPERIENCE AS RESEARCHER, JOURNALIST + HISTORIAN AFFECTS HER CHARACTER CONSTRUCTION, AND WHY POETS MAKE THE BEST PLAYWRIGHTS LISTEN/DOWNLOAD John Ware is the greatest Canadian legend you probably have never heard of. He was a 19th Century West African born into the American continent-wide rape-gulag that apologists call the Old South. He went on to become one of thousands of African-American cowboys, and he eventually moved to what is now Alberta to become a master bronco-buster, successful rancher, a founder of modern rodeo culture, and a man of near mythic proportions with the strength of Paul Bunyan and the power of a horse whisperer. Ware earned the admiration of many of his fellow settlers on First Nations territory, although many Euro-Canadians called him, and please excuse the language, “Nigger John,” and after he died, used the N-word to describe Alberta landmarks associated with John Ware, n...

MAKING SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS ALBUMS WHEN LOVE SONGS COULD MAKE HER RICH,  MOST RECENT LESSONS IN MARKETTING AND PROMOTING HER BAND, WHY SHE WON’T TOUR THE UNITED STATES   LISTEN/DOWNLOAD Souljah Fyah. They’re an outstanding reggae band. And that’s not just me saying it. Here’s what Shelly Gummeson from Earshot-Online says: “On and off stage...[lead singer] Sista J exudes a high voltage, positive energy. Unfettered without setting limitations is precisely the attitude and energy that has propelled Edmonton’s Souljah Fyah to become Canada’s top Reggae band.” They’ve won all kinds of acclaim: including a Juno nomination, two Western Canadian Music Association awards, and twice-declared the best reggae band in Canada by the Canadian Reggae Music Awards and the Reggae Music Achievement Awards. So who’s in Souljah Fyah? The leader is Waymatea Ellis, better known as Sista J; she’s the lead singer, the lyricist, and she plays bass; she’s also a reverend with her ow...