Heidi Greco does Seven of the Proust

Heidi Greco, author of A: The Amelia Poems (Lipstick 2009), has recently published her new novella  Shrinking Violets (Quattro 2011) .

It's a story about a red-head named Reggie - a single mother who works as a cashier. It sounds ordinary but soon turns out to be a gripping tale of dreams and secrets that turn sour.

Heidi agreed to participate in Lipstick's "Seven of the Proust" questionnaire. It asks us to go deeper than the interview about how long you have been writing, to reveal a little of the writer's soul.

Lipstick wishes Heidi every success in her career as novelist, reviewer and poet.

Note: the acronym PQ in this blog means Proust Questionnaire and has nothing to do with the Parti Quebecois.

PQ: What is your idea of happiness?

Heidi: Sitting outside on a summery evening, sharing a meal with those I love. Or, if the weather isn’t cooperating, doing the same thing inside.

PQ: What is your favourite virtue?

Heidi: Charity, especially charitable acts that are done in secret.

PQ: What is your biggest weakness?

Heidi: In general, sweets. To narrow it down, chocolate.

PQ: Who are your favourite poets?

Heidi: Sharon Olds for her honesty. Mary Oliver for her never-preachy connections to the earth. Rhona McAdam for her ability to express the most complex notions with the simplest of words. I can only hope McAdam has a new book out soon, as I’ve worn quite a path in her last one, "Cartography. "

PQ: Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

Heidi: Amelia Earhart, of course. Also Nikola Tesla whose almost magical Tesla coil is probably the closest thing yet to a perpetual-motion machine, or at least a very sustainable power-channelling device. And for each doing their bit to make the world a better place: Kurt Vonnegut, Elizabeth May and Robert Zimmerman.



PQ: What do you most dislike?

Heidi: I’m with Holden Caulfield on this one – phonies. They’re generally so overblown full of themselves.  On second thought, maybe I have to say pumpkin pie.

PQ: What is your motto?

Heidi: Keep at it. It’s the only way you might get there, wherever ‘there’ might be.

Words for Orange by Antony di Nardo

Yeah, right, the eternal flame

a chalk walk around it marked by
displays of skewed sentiments

a single inflatable all orange
swings from the half wall

bunches of flowers
and hands cupping candles

orange cans of Orange Crush
and these words,

“In lieu of flowers,
fight oppression.”

Hope and Optimism by Janet Vickers

Your hope and optimism

have found us
like two pigeons
on a cedar branch
cooing in the morning's wake.

They flap their slow wings
with the graceful effort
of birds who do not soar
high above the forest
who must submit to gravity
close to earth's prickly shrubs, cliffs
and green meadows.

Hope and optimism are not light and airy
they are creatures of blood and bone
picking through grit and dirt
for anything they can use.

Mortal in pain

immortal in flight.