There is a quiet thrill to be acknowledged when you're in the presence of some of the most unique, thought-provoking, intellectual, and individualistic writers this nation has to offer. Michael Turner, Leon Rooke, and Marie-Claire Blais are three authors who embody such qualities. They were the center of attention at Event 37 The Tightrope that took place on October 23, and those who were able to attend the event were treated with a very intriguing discussion on the topic of unconventional writing.

The event began with a reading from each author from their latest novels: 8 X 10 by Michael Turner, The Last Shot: Eleven Stories and a Novella by Leon Rooke, and Rebecca Born in Maelstrom by Marie-Claire Blais and translated by Nigel Spencer. It was a pleasure to be able to hear the authors read their own work. Especially Rooke. He reads with so much animation and character that his exuberance leaves you with a lasting grin on your face. I greatly urge fans of Rooke to flock to his future readings.

The authors certainly had much to say about how they view the assertion that they are seen as unconventional writers of their time. Leon Rooke believed that there are too many writers that are too timid in their writing, which unfortunately produces too much repetition in what is being written and how it is being written. Marie-Claire Blais also has similar views that Rooke has. She regards this as how writers are never free enough in their style. There are endless possibilities about what can be written. Humanity is so rich with ideas that can be used. For Michael Turner, he realizes that to be called unconventional means there is a convention and to write unconventionally, one must ask what the conventional is.

Host Aislinn Hunter and the authors touched upon the idea of what convention means in literature. Convention is the format where stories will be expected to have a beginning, middle, and end. As well, characters will have names in which the reader can identify them by. However in the works of the featured authors in this discussion, their characters are often nameless and there are discrepancies as to what can be labeled a beginning, middle, or end. For example, Rooke's latest complication of short stories have narrators, but the reader is usually clueless about the narrator's name. Blais' novel Rebecca Born in Maelstrom is written in stream of consciousness, where the narrator goes on and on throughout the novel, with no end punctuation.