Bare It for Books
Calendar will transform authors into pin-ups for a good cause.
The email arrives: Would you like to take your knickers off for literacy? And while the average person might file it with the Ouagadougou lottery windfalls, the inquisitive writer says, “Tell me more.”
So it proved for Amanda Leduc and Allegra Young, the women behind Bare It for Books, a literacy initiative and benefit for the freedom-of-expression writers’ group PEN Canada featuring a 2014 calendar starring 12 Canadian authors in nearundress. Among your dozen pen pals, Yann Martel will put away his Oscars tux as Mr. December. Angie Abdou, Miranda Hill, 2006 Giller Prize winner Vincent Lam (Bloodletting and Other Miraculous Cures) and young Montreal-based writer Saleema Nawaz will also artfully uncover themselves.
“It’s a nearly nude calendar,” Leduc says. “Nobody will have their private parts on display, posing in these super-sexy ways.” Less a gynecological exam than an impish exercise, then.
The idea occurred suddenly last summer. “I’m a writer myself,” Leduc says, “and was avoiding my own work, fooling around on Twitter when the thought randomly popped into my head: a sexy Canadian lit calendar — why not?”
Yes, I believe it was said of Frederick Philip Grove that he resembled a young Olivier. But I digress. The Twitterati responded, with Leduc’s friend Young saying, “Let’s do it. And if we’re going to do it, we should go all the way.”
This meant expanding what was initially a small initiative into a full-on charitable and consciousness-rais- ing campaign for freedom of expression.
“I’ve looked at so many Canadian author photos over the years and often thought, ‘Damn, that person is really attractive,’ ” Leduc says. “I mean, Miranda Hill and Steven Heighton — there was the funny initial thought: ‘Gee, it would be great if they would pose for a calendar. I would buy it.’ ”
The average writer is likely hunched in the garret in stricken or blissful solitude, channelling the muse in pyjamas. What’s one less article of clothing?
Leduc and Young sent email invitations to about 100 candidates, hoping for a dozen responses — and were flooded within the half-hour. Desperate bastards.
“Well, as (Toronto writer/ critic) Steven Beattie has said, ‘There are two things every writer will do at a moment’s notice: getting drunk and getting naked.’ ” Leduc has cheerfully endured or ignored this reporter’s weary string of double entendres, which ends up serving a purpose: What might have seemed, or even been, a frivolous project is instead revealed as a tuning fork of an idea that prompts, provokes or exposes, incidentally or not, deeper issues.
“There is that element of authors baring their souls on the page. And I think the reading public maybe gets inured to that now and again and doesn’t realize exactly what goes into creating a work of art — how much authors dig deep inside of themselves and deal with things that are difficult and uncomfortable.
“So this is such a perfect tie-in — we get quite complacent and forget that freedom of speech and freedom of expression are not something everyone around the world gets to enjoy.”
There have been occasional online comments about the calendar — “that it’s such a tired idea, and who wants to see Author X, Y or Z in the nude like this? But I think people forget that even posting a comment like that in a public forum, you can do that in this country and nobody’s gonna come after you, nobody’s gonna persecute you.”
They might, though, if you’re missing the supermodel DNA and dare to show off the imperfect tan or the tummy roll. Which only prompts further debate. Think of recent controversies — the HBO series Girls, the Green Bay Packers cheerleader who fought a YouTube battle over online taunts — and remember we are so accustomed to supermodel images that “real girl” pics can prompt a prudish or even vicious response.
“We think of Canada as this happy-go-lucky freestyle country, and it’s not,” Leduc says.
“And it would be great if this tiny campaign, as silly and fun as it is, can be a launching pad for people to discuss these issues.” It is also advertising. “Saleema Nawaz is a perfect case in point,” Leduc says.
“People hooked into the book world know who she is, they know she’s won the Journey Prize (for short stories by emerging writers) and has a collection of short stories that was really well received, and has a novel that just came out. But others might not have heard of her. I think it’s great that we can give her a little more exposure.”
“What month are you?” is not generally the question you ask a writer, nor is “I’m between Vincent Lam and Yann Martel” the usual response. Nawaz will be Ms. November. “I’m still brainstorming what my props might be,” she says.
“Part of the other reason I wanted to say yes is the novel I wrote (Bone and Bread, released last month and set in Mile End), which is about an eating disorder and how it devastates a family. And even though there are lots of complex interlocking causes, it’s fairly certain that a lack of images of normal, healthy bodies is a contributing factor for young women. I have a pretty normal, you know, imperfect body.
“I was pretty nervous and am still nervous,” she says. She hasn’t been photographed yet. “I was raised in an extremely modest Catholic household. It actually took me years to be able to use a public changing room,” she laughs. “I would go to the Y and use the toilet stall.
“But obviously, PEN Canada is an amazing cause and all writers feel strongly about freedom of expression as a necessary condition for what we do.
“Also, CanLit needs a fun injection.”
As ideas go, it’s got legs.