Blodgett and Zits ready for the curtain to rise

It’s been a long time coming for the St. Albert Public Library to welcome back Paul Zits. The author of the recently-released book Massacre Street could have a moment of nostalgia for the place where he used to shuttle books back to their shelves.

“I do remember Paul from when he worked here before,” stated Heather Dolman, the library’s public services manager, recalling his days as a page. Now, she’s happy to host both him and Astrid Blodgett for their other page work – their new books that have just been released to much popular and critical reception.

“It’s just a good opportunity to promote some of our local writers that have done well.”

Blodgett’s collection of short stories – You Haven’t Changed a Bit – and Zits’ Massacre Street, a poetic retelling of the Frog Lake Massacre, are also both now on the library’s shelves for users to borrow.

Zits is pretty pleased that things are going so well with this, his first foray as an author.

“I’m glad that it’s actually worked out as well as it has. I’ve gotten a lot of great response from people in St. Albert and I’m pleased to be able to come back and launch this book amongst friends and family.”

The two have already made a few appearances together so the St. Albert audience should expect a relatively smooth meet and greet. Zits said that they have an easy rapport with each other. The only glitch that he can foresee is that he’s not quite sure what he will read. He is tossing around the idea of a sample from each section of his book, or possibly some new works.

“Performance is a different ball game altogether. There’s a lot of pieces in the book that I consider to be quite great but that I would never perform in front of an audience, just out of respect, I guess, for the audience,” he laughed.

“Some pieces are stronger in a performative sense. I think there’s a lot of decision making that has to go into what pieces are ultimately performed and which pieces are meant to be left to be read by the readers.”

He added that, apart from the praise, one of the unintended benefits of Massacre Street is that he has started to make contact with people who have direct or indirect personal connections to the tragic event in our province’s history.

“People are really responding to the book in ways that I hadn’t intended on. I find it really remarkable that it’s been able to that kind of a really intimate impact on people.”

The timing of the authors’ event is also important, Dolman continued.

“The fact that Paul’s book is geared around aboriginal issues and the event is on National Aboriginal Day, I think, is a good fit.”