Exploring Stories and Discovering Delights
Re-capturing that Once Upon a Time Feeling
About the Storyteller
Welcome to the Wunsapon!
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I've had a lifetime of stories, both as a creator and as a consumer, and to this day my happiest memories are those of discovering something special to read, watch, or hear. The Wunsapon is a repository of my thoughts and reflections about literature and other media, and hopefully a resource where you can discover new delights for yourself.
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My day job is a data analyst at UBC, but in my spare time I'm an award-winning writer and director of new musical theatre in Vancouver, having created The Broadway Chorus, my local troupe, back in 1999. We produce two new shows a year, and as a composer/lyricist I've also composed six musicals myself. In my spare-spare time I volunteer as a guide at VanDusen Botanical Garden: plants have stories too!
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The Wunsapon Philosophy
I Believe in Magic
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There's a special magic in stories that can't be found anywhere else. And while I love great film, television, and theatre, it's the book that holds a special place in my heart. Novels are transformative: something takes place in our brains (and our hearts) and transports us into a "Fictive Dream" (author John Gardner's term) where the best books, whilst we read them, seem as real as anything else outside them.
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And here's where I'll admit my biases. I don't particularly want fiction to educate me about the horrors of the world: I know all too well what those are. I don't think "escapism" is a dirty word. I tend to eschew anything too self-consciously literary, and anything clumsily-written: both call too much attention to themselves as writings for me to be able to surrender myself. I want characters I can love (or hate) but most of all believe in. I want to laugh. I want to be charmed. I think the best book ever written is probably Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. I've written five novels myself but haven't had the confidence to publish them yet (mostly because I keep thinking they aren't quite good enough).