You know that scene in the movie Annie when they get her back from the orphanage and everyone starts dancing around Daddy Warbuck’s huge mansion, singing, “We got Annie! We got Annie!” Well, I’m doing that inside my head. Only my words are, “I got in! I got in!”

I got into the Magnum Workshop in Toronto with Alec Soth!

How much do I admire Alec Soth? A lot, a lot.

When I was 20 or so, I loved Al Purdy’s poems. In fact, I loved his poems from the first time I read them when I was around 16. When I was 20, he was still my favourite living (then) poet. He had a reading here at The Albion Hotel, my local watering hole, and I just couldn’t believe my luck in getting to hear him read. Then I got an opportunity to go to the Harbourfront Tribute to him (I think it was 1996? 1997?), and I didn’t think it would get better than that. And then I got to go interview him at his home in Sidney, BC.

This is just like that.

Only this time, I won’t fuck it up.

Eek! Not only am I going to hear Alec Soth talk (presumably about his approach and experiences), but I’m going to meet him. I’ll probably even get to carry on an actual conversation with him. I wonder if he’ll sign my book?