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Biography
David
Carpenter was conceived in Saskatoon but born in Edmonton
in 1941. His parents (Paul Hamilton and Marjorie E. Parkin)
met and courted in Saskatoon during the late 1920s and early
1930s. His father was born in Regina in 1905. Paul's father
(Henry Stanley) was one of the first land surveyors in the
province, and later the Deputy Minister of Highways, after
whom the village of Carpenter was named. David's mother
grew up in Saskatoon. Her family’s eccentricities
are the subject of "This Shot," a story in Carpenter's 1994
book of essays, Writing
Home.
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He spent his first 23 years in Edmonton,
working in the mountains nearby during the summers as
a car hop, a driver for Brewster Rocky Mountain Grayline,
a fish stocker, a trail guide, and a folksinger. He read
French and German at the University of Alberta where he
was an indifferent student. He graduated and taught high
school in Edmonton until 1965, then went south to do an
M.A. in English at the University of Oregon. He returned
to Canada in 1967 and once again taught school until the
summer of 1969, when he enrolled for his Ph. D. at the
University of Alberta. Early in this program, he dropped
out twice and re-instated himself twice, and after a period
of prolonged grumbling, graduated in 1973. During this
year, he was awarded a two year post-doctorate at the
University of Manitoba, where he also taught courses in
American literature for the inmates of Stoney Mountain
Penitentiary.
By the mid-1970s
Carpenter had published a few poems and some translations
(poetry and fiction) from the French. When he was appointed
to his job at the University of Saskatchewan in 1975,
he was still a hobby writer. This appointment was in Canadian
literature with a specialty in regionalism, and included
teaching English to Aboriginal students from the north.
The following summer
(1976, Austin, Texas) he was caught in a heat wave and
confined to quarters after his shifts each day at the
University of Texas library. It was here (to avoid going
crazy with boredom) that he began to write a long piece
of fiction. This new work eventually became a series of
novellas and long stories, Jokes
for the Apocalypse, Jewels, and God's
Bedfellows, all of which appeared between l985
and l988. Jokes was runner up for the Gerald Lampert
Award, and his novella "The Ketzer" won first prize in
the Descant Novella
Contest. A revised version of this story was published
in book form in 2004.
While these stories
were under way, he did a workshop in creative writing
down at Fort San with Robert Kroetsch, on whom he had
done research as a Ph. D. student. His other instructors
were Matt Cohen and Jack Hodgins. He did only a few workshops
with these writers, but the sessions proved to be a period
of intense learning for him. Another influence at this
time was prof/poet/playwright Don Kerr, for whom he worked
as fiction editor of the NeWest Review.
The problem during
this time was that the writing was taking over his life,
and during the teaching year, he was able to get very
little work done. Around 1985, he split his appointment
and job-shared with Pat Lane, Lorna Crozier, and Maria
Campbell. This arrangement formalized what he had been
doing since 1979, and it lasted until 1997 when Carpenter
turned to writing fulltime.
Back in the fall
of 1988, Carpenter had begun work on his first full length
novel, entitled Banjo Lessons. This was published in
1997 and won the City of Edmonton Book Prize. During the
early nineties he also finished the last of his personal
and literary essays which make up Writing Home, his first
book of nonfiction. The essays explore his engagements
with such writers as Richard Ford, Mordecai Richler, the
French writer/ scientist Georges Bugnet, and the late
Raymond Carver. Several of these pieces won prizes for
literary journalism and for humour in the Western Magazine
Awards. Most had been published in such places as Saturday Night, The Globe & Mail and its
affiliates, or in some equivalent American publications.
One of these essays was featured in an expanded form on
CBC Radio's Ideas. In 1996 he brought out a second book
of essays all about life around home, a month-by-month
salute to the seasons entitled Courting
Saskatchewan. It won the Saskatchewan Book Award
for nonfiction.
Virtually all of
Carpenter's work is set in and inspired by the Canadian
West. Since 1975, with the exception of three years in
Toronto and on the west coast, he has lived and written
in Saskatoon. Throughout the years he has always been
a passionate outdoorsman and environmentalist. This abiding
love of lakes, trails, streams and campsites translates
into city life in Saskatoon as well, where he lives with
his wife, artist Honor Kever, and their son Will. His
first book of poetry, Trout Stream Creed, was published in 2003.
His second novel, entitled Luck, is due out in October of 2005.
Carpenter’s
writing credo is as follows (and it may not apply to poets):
Most writers must learn to make a pact with dullness.
Not boredom, or lack of imagination or passion, but dullness
of routine. Keep your daily appointment with the computer
screen and keep your ass on the chair until you’ve
reached your daily quota. However rich your inner life
may be, seek also the dullard within. 
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