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Blue Metropolis programming director Gregory McCormick, right, with festival president William St-Hilaire.
Photograph by: Allen McInnis , The Gazette
MONTREAL - William St-Hilaire and Gregory McCormick are holding up just fine, considering. Chatting in the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival?s office in St-Henri, president/general manager/artistic director St-Hilaire and programming director McCormick are in the final pre-event home stretch, a stage where rest has become a distant memory.
They?ve got good cause to feel wide awake. Blue Metropolis, in a time of tightened belts for everyone in the arts, is doing well. This year?s edition, the 15th, features 200 writers (up from 150 last year) at 184 events (124 in the adult festival, 60 in the children?s), many already sold out or close to it; last year?s attendee head count of 22,000 is expected to be surpassed. One key ingredient in this success has been a rethinking in venue philosophy: after hosting at a series of big chain hotels, a move was made to the boutique Hotel 10 at Sherbrooke St. and St. Laurent Blvd. last year. It has been a case of a user-friendly downsizing coming up trumps.
?Feedback has been very good,? McCormick says of the new site. ?It?s often said that in a smaller venue, people cross paths more, you run into people you know ? friends, people you haven?t seen in a long time, famous writers. Previous hotels had sometimes felt conference-y. You tended to get lost a bit, the rooms were very big. Personally, I would rather have 100 people in a room and have that room feel packed than have the same number of people or more in a room that feels half empty.?
?The location was an issue, too,? says St-Hilaire. ?We looked at a lot of hotels to find a perfect spot between the francophone and anglophone communities, something that was more central and hip.?
The festival also makes use of neighbouring spaces to accommodate overflow, including, for the first time last year, the Grande Biblioth?que for the onstage interview with the International Literary Grand Prix recipient. ?There was a lot of skepticism about that last year, from several different camps,? says McCormick. ?It was an anglo writer (Joyce Carol Oates) and there was a lot of talk that the anglo audience wouldn?t go there, because it was thought to be a space that the anglophone community doesn?t frequent. But it sold out, so there you go.?
When the lineup and themes are being drawn up, ?nothing is spontaneous,? says St-Hilaire. ?We need to consider a lot of parameters. We have 75 per cent Canadian content because of grant stipulations, a certain proportion of anglophones to francophones to other languages. We start with ideas: we brainstorm, think of l?air du temps, consider personal passions like sustainability. Mental health (a theme this year) was something important to me because of my personal family background.?
When it comes time to actually book the writers, a process ideally finished by the previous Christmas, a lot of variables come into play: who?s available, who?s got a new book out, who?s on a tour that might line up with other stops on the circuit, like the Ottawa International Writers Festival and the Frye Festival in Moncton.
?Another nice thing,? says McCormick, ?is that we can definitely use Montreal as part of our pitch. Writers like to come here.?
Book people being no different from anyone else in their attraction to star power, name recognition plays an undeniable role, says McCormick. ?There?s always a certain tension between introducing audiences to writers they don?t know and bringing in big names. It?s a matter of balancing those two sides of the program. I think our Grand Prix winners, historically, have satisfied that big-name angle.?
The Grand Prix pick ? this year it?s Irish novelist and playwright Colm Toibin ? is crucial, providing a common talking point for festivalgoers and, in a sense, setting the tone for the whole event. The list of past winners shows a nice series of balances: Canadian and international, anglophone and francophone, male and female. That?s an especially happy result given that the selection jury (headed this year by T.F. Rigelhof) is independent. ?We have to completely respect that distance,? says St-Hilaire. ?You can?t be independent only when it?s convenient.?
When St-Hilaire took over in 2010 from outgoing festival founder Linda Leith, she found that her history in the arts didn?t preclude a vertiginous learning curve. ?I started my career as an (arts) organizer, and I?m a former musician, so I was aware how it was in the cultural business, how tough it is to get the money,? she says. ?I did that for a very long time, at places like Usine C. Then I went to CBC, where for 10 years I spent other people?s money. So when I got back into the arts (with Blue Metropolis), I remembered, ?Oh, right, this is why I quit the first time.? ?
Once she got over the shock of an accumulated festival deficit, St-Hilaire set to work: full-time staff was halved from 10 to five, new funding activities were started and new granting bodies tapped (the overall million-dollar operating budget is divided roughly down the middle between grants and private funding/box office revenue), and within a year, the festival?s books went from the red to the black. ?We?re doing more with less, no question,? says St-Hilaire. ?But that?s the times. We?re no different in that sense than the hospitals and the fonction publique.?
More with less, for Blue Met?s organizers and volunteers, is a mantra that will fit the next seven days all too well when it comes to sleep and the lack of it, too. ?It?s like preparing for a marathon,? says St-Hilaire. ?At this point, it?s 20 hours a day.?
McCormick, for his part, says: ?I?ll crash for three days when it?s all over.?
The Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival runs Monday through Sunday. For information on events and tickets, visit www.bluemetropolis.org or call 514-937-2538.
ianmcgillis2@gmail.com
Twitter:@IanAMcGillis
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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