We do love mythologies and mythologizing, don’t we? We especially seem to love creating or shaping origin stories that mirror what it is we wish to believe. We can (and do) build and propound an entire universe, a grand narrative of convenience, some of which might even be true.
Big words, I know, and for use in such a small matter, that of a literary reading series begun 36 years ago. Who could possibly care? Well, I do. Who I am, who I became, is inextricably intertwined with an origin story that is mine of the making: the founding of what came to be called the Conspiracy of 3. Stuff has accreted around that story. That’s an inevitability. But before it has a chance to harden in place, I wanted to tell this origin story as one who was there, as one who was primary and causal.
I can suggest two things: that most of it is de-mythologically true with just a soupçon of opinion mixed in, and that it begins with sports.
The latter is because the city of North Bay, Ontario (pop. just over 50,000) isn’t exactly renowned for its cultural life. This is a sports town, period. Save for community theatre, culture comes way way down the list.
Still, it’s produced some cultural significance, albeit well below the radar of most folks around here (such is the lot of the Arts). On the literary side, for instance, there was a periodical: Nebula, founded in the mid-1970s by the late poet Ken Stange and published quarterly (some of those writers who participated in the Conspiracy readings got their start working on the magazine). And, of more recent vintage, there’s a personage: the novelist and screenwriter Giles Blunt, born and raised in North Bay (he’s even set some of his novels in a fictionalized version of the city). But of course he left. What, after all, was there to stay for?
We tend to do that – leave, I mean. I originally came here as a 11 year-old only because the Cold War thought it was a good idea; my military father was transferred here, and our family decamped from our previous posting on the West Coast of the United States to this spot in northeastern Ontario. And I left too, finally and (I thought) for good in 1990. But first…
In the late 1980s, North Bay experienced a brief spell of the culturally alternative: a nascent counter-culture began to emerge in response to the lack of one (a response, as it were, to a void). Music, visual art, and (of pertinence here), literature. Of the latter’s manifestations, the most public became the Conspiracy of 3.
The short organizational version: I became involved in public reading series in 1979 at the artist-run centre, White Water Gallery. (Despite my negativity about culture around here, White Water is a bit of an anomaly; founded in the mid-1970s, it was one of the very first artist-run centres in Canada, and is still a going concern.) The series there was established and run by Ken Stange, and, fresh out of (or, more accurately, away from) university, I eagerly watched over his shoulder as he did it, learning the organizational ropes. When that reading series came to an end, Ken and I put together and ran another: Upstairs at Rosenberg’s (so-named as it was held in an empty space used by the North Bay Writers Guild above a men’s clothing store by that name) in 1980-81. The likes of David Helwig, John Metcalf, and bpNichol came through the doors.
We eventually lost access to the space, and so things
remained relatively quiet despite occasional readings at a re-located White
Water Gallery. In the mid-1980s, a pub opened in an old home in the downtown:
The Lion’s Heart. The married couple who owned it welcomed aspiring artists and
writers from the community, and many of them even ended up working there. It
quickly became a cultural hub; serendipitously or not, other things began to
blossom beyond its doors. There was new music with bands like Wilma’s Beatnik
Polka Band and The Molly Maguires performing entirely original material; artist
Jill Boschulte established North Bay Artists Development and Promotion,
a program that ran for three years giving area visual artists a huge boost up
with income, and access to studio space, materials, and teaching; and a
brand-new arts centre opened in a historic former theatre and included a public
art gallery.(At long last, the alternative artist-run centre in town had
something to be alternative to.)
The Conspiracy of Three was an integral part of this. I was asked by the owners of the Lion’s Heart if I’d be interested in organizing something literary, something which would run monthly on an otherwise slow Tuesday evening. They would provide a small stipend. I jumped at the chance, and on May 17, 1988, the first reading was held. Only it wasn’t a “conspiracy”; rather, I called it Gang of Four. In the course of the reading, I decided that four readers was a bit unwieldly, and thought that three would be a better number. But what to call it? Sitting next to me at the reading was the then-director of White Water Gallery, Sharon Wright. She gave me the name.
And so until I departed for Halifax in September of 1990, what went on with the Conspiracy was all my doing. I did the bookings. There was no screening process; in keeping with the early spirit of the artist-run movement, if you told me you were a writer then that was good enough, and I would book you (all those who read equally shared the small stipend provided by the pub). I did the advertising and hosted the evening readings. Mine was the face and fact of the Conspiracy. As the series successfully brought in audiences, I decided that I wanted to extend its reach, and bring in occasional guests from elsewhere. With the financial help of the Canada Council, that was able to happen. Tim Lilburn, Arnold Itwaru, Susan McMaster, and Mark Frutkin were some of the writers invited, all of whom I hosted in my home.
With the permission of the writers, I tape recorded most readings. A number of those tapes as well as paper ephemera found their way to the archives of the North Bay Public Library because of the interest of the then-chief librarian, Paul Walker. (Alas, it seems more recent generations of library bureaucracy have had no interest in preserving this material, and it appears it may have been entirely disposed of.)
But not everything had this end. I kept a number of tapes, have them still, as well as all the original files of correspondence, advertising, and grant applications. When I left North Bay in September of 1990, I passed the Conspiracy organizational torch to the late poet Ian McCulloch, and it has gone through several more hands over the years, currently run by the poet Denis Stokes.
It has also had a number of homes. The Lion’s Heart Pub eventually closed as the owners moved away, the brief renaissance of music, art and literature sputtered to a kind of end and things largely settled back into the city’s steady state.
But not totally. Anomalies like White Water Gallery and the Conspiracy carried on.
Thirty-four years after leaving here and never expecting to be back, here I am again, brought here by love. I’ve gratefully taken the opportunity to re-engage with the anomalies, and sit in and hear what still goes on in a literary world that largely exists below the awareness of most people around here. Soccer, cricket, baseball, and hockey are the norm, and while they command public consciousness, the Conspiracy still has things to say.
Or at least, that’s how I won’t mythologize it.
Gil McElroy
July 2024
Gil McElroy is a poet, visual artist, and curator. He is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Long Division (University of Calgary Press, 2020), a collection of his writing on art entitled Gravity & Grace: Selected Writings on Contemporary Canadian Art (Gaspereau Press, 2001), and memoir of growing up a military brat during the Cold War, Cold Comfort: Growing Up Cold War (Talonbooks, 2012).
