Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Speakeasy
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1971
WEBSITE: https://alisasmith.ca/
CITY: Vancouver
STATE: BC
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY: Canadian
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2006093879
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2006093879
HEADING: Smith, Alisa, 1971-
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010 __ |a n 2006093879
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |e rda |d DLC
046 __ |f 1971 |2 edtf
053 _0 |a PR9199.4.S632
100 1_ |a Smith, Alisa, |d 1971-
370 __ |f Vancouver (B.C.)
670 __ |a Smith, Alisa. Plenty, c2007: |b ecip (Alisa Smith) info. from pub. (b. 1971)
670 __ |a Speakeasy, 2018: |b ECIP t.p. (Alisa Smith)
670 __ |a Amazon.com website, viewed Dec. 8, 2017: |b (ALISA SMITH is the bestselling co-author of Plenty: A Year of Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet (Crown). Her freelance writing has been published in Outside, Reader’s Digest, Utne Reader, Ms. Magazine, Canadian Geographic, Elle Canada, the National Post, and many others, winning two National Magazine Awards. She served as a judge for a various literary awards and has lectured widely on writing. She is based in Vancouver where she is now hard at work on the sequel to Speakeasy)
953 __ |a jf05 |b jf09
PERSONAL
Born 1971; partner of J.B. MacKinnon.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Securities regulator, certified fraud examiner, and writer.
AWARDS:Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, Canadian Culinary Book Award, and ,American Cordon d’Or Award of Literary Merit, all for The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating; several National Magazine Awards.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Outside, Reader’s Digest, Canadian Geographic, Explore, and National Post.
SIDELIGHTS
Alisa Hall is an award-winning journalist and an author of both fiction and nonfiction books. Her first book, Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally, written with partner J.B. MacKinnon, chronicles their effort to consume only foods produced near their home. She followed that with the novel Speakeasy, about a World War II code-breaker haunted by her criminal past.
Plenty
Plenty, published as The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating in Canada, details the challenges and rewards she and MacKinnon found over the year in which they vowed to stick to a diet of foods, beverages, and ingredients produced within 100 miles of their home in Canada’s British Columbia province. They wanted to do business with small, local producers and lessen the environmental impact of their eating habits. They knew they would face some difficulties. “This might not even be possible,” Smith recalls saying to MacKinnon, after spending $130 on the ingredients for one meal. The couple stuck to their plan, however, and even went so far as to try making their own cheese. They also took advantage of the abundant seafood available in British Columbia and tried some fruits and vegetables that were new to them. They invited others to share their locally sourced meals, and they attracted some public attention over the year of their experiment. Smith and MacKinnon divide their narrative into chapters for each month, all featuring a recipe tailored to that month.
The volume won several awards, and some reviewers deemed it both instructive and entertaining. “This book isn’t just about two people pursuing a common–some might say lofty–goal,” related New York State Conservationist contributor Bernadette LaManna. “It’s also about economics, environment, families and friendships, geography, history, traditions, weather, and society’s increasing disconnect from the natural world.” She advised readers: Be sure to include Plenty on your reading list.”
Speakeasy
Smith’s first novel tells the story of Lena Stillman, a young woman working as a code-breaker for the Canadian government during World War II; her job is to decipher messages from the Japanese armed forces. A few years earlier, however, she was part of a gang of bank robbers led by Bill Bagley, who was also her lover. She has begun receiving communications from Bill, who is in prison, awaiting execution, and she fears he will reveal her past to her employers. Smith alternates Lena’s narrative with that of another former gang member, Byron Godfrey, who saw the criminal group as a means of escape from a mundane life.
Smith was inspired to write the novel after finding out her great-aunt had been a code-breaker during WWII. “Speakeasy suddenly arrived in my mind,” she said in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation online interview. “This was the female protagonist I’d been waiting for. … This was the woman I needed: a woman who loved secrets, drawn to adventure and risk. Someone who always wanted to play the game big.” Smith had already been reading about the exploits of the real-life Bill Bagley, and she decided to join the fictional woman’s story to his. “Lena Stillman otherwise has nothing in common with my great aunt, but I’m grateful for the inspiration,” she added.
Several critics admired Speakeasy. “Intriguing characters and an unusual setting lift this appealing debut novel,” remarked a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who called the criminal gang’s adventures “both upsetting and exhilarating.” Bill Ott, writing in Booklist, preferred the narrative of Lena’s wartime assignment; Smith, he said, “provides crisp detail about the code breakers’ work and vividly describes the remote Canadian backdrop.” He summed up the novel as “disjointed but still satisfying .” On the Straight website, George Fetherling termed Speakeasy “a remarkable leap” for a writer previously known only for nonfiction, noting that Smith “has managed to merge a gangster noir with a feminist spy thriller.” He concluded that she has produced “a satisfying and well-thought-out novel.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Smith, Alisa, with J.B. MacKinnon, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating (nonfiction), Random House (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2007, published as Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2007, and as Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet, Three Rivers Press (New York, NY), 2007.
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2007, Mark Knoblauch. review of Plenty, p. 11; February 1, 2018, Bill Ott,, review of Speakeasy, p. 34,
New York State Conservationist, June, 2008, Bernadette LaManna, review of Plenty, p. 31.
Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2018, review of Speakeasy, p. 57.
ONLINE
Alisa Smith website, https://alisasmith.ca (June 28, 2018).
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website, https://www.cbc.ca/ (July 10, 2017), “Alisa Smith on Being Inspired by Strong female Protagonists.”
MacMillan website, https://us.macmillan.com/ (June 28, 2018), brief biography.
Penguin Random House website, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/ (June 28, 2018), brief biography.
Straight, https://www.straight.com/ (May 3, 2017), George Fetherling, “Alisa Smith’s Novel Speakeasy Houses a History of Dark Secrets.”
Alisa Smith is an award-winning journalist and author. Her best-selling first book, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating (Random House, 2007), won the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, the Canadian Culinary Book Award and the American Cordon d’Or Award of Literary Merit. She has contributed to many publications including Outside, Reader's Digest, Canadian Geographic, Explore and the National Post, and she is the recipient of several National Magazine Awards. She is a securities regulator and certified fraud examiner who lives in Vancouver, BC, where she is working on the sequel to Speakeasy, Doublespeak.
ALISA SMITH is the bestselling co-author of Plenty: A Year of Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet (Crown). Her freelance writing has been published in Outside, Reader’s Digest, Utne Reader, Ms. Magazine, Canadian Geographic, Elle Canada, the National Post, and many others, winning two National Magazine Awards. She served as a judge for a various literary awards and has lectured widely on writing. She is based in Vancouver.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alisa Smith, a Vancouver-based freelance writer who has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, has been published in Outside, Explore, Canadian Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Utne, and many other periodicals. The books Way Out There and Liberalized feature her work.
NOTE FROM TRUDY--MADE AN EXECUTIVE DECISION NOT TO ATTRIBUTE THIS TO ONE INTERVIEWER BECAUSE THERE ARE MANY OF THEM!
Quoted in Sidelights: “Speakeasy suddenly arrived in my mind,” “This was the female protagonist I’d been waiting for. … This was the woman I needed: a woman who loved secrets, drawn to adventure and risk. Someone who always wanted to play the game big.” “Lena Stillman otherwise has nothing in common with my great aunt, but I’m grateful for the inspiration,” she added.
MAGIC 8 Q&A
Alisa Smith on being inspired by strong female protagonists
Erin Balser · CBC · July 10, 2017
Alisa Smith is the author of Speakeasy. (Douglas & McIntyre)
0 comments
Alisa Smith's breakout book, The 100-Mile Diet, explored what it takes to eat locally. Now Alisa has turned her pen to fiction. Her debut novel, Speakeasy, tells the story of Lena Stillman, an elite codebreaker who is successful in hiding her outlaw past until her notorious gang leader is sentenced to hang for his crimes.
Below, Alisa Smith answers eight questions submitted by eight of his fellow writers in the CBC Books Magic 8 Q&A.
1. Sharon Butala asks, "Someone once said to me, 'It's a sin not to write,' meaning that if you have the gift you do not have the right not to use it. Is writing something given to you by the gods and thus it is your duty to pursue and develop it?"
I've seen that the most seemingly gifted writers may not have what it takes to succeed in the end. Discipline, the capacity to learn and change — in the long run these qualities are most important. I once took a fiction workshop with Guy Vanderhaeghe and he said when he started writing he had a friend he thought the better writer. But that friend quit. I admire Vanderhaeghe's writing immensely and he is one of Canada's most acclaimed fiction writers. So the only sin is to feel compelled to the depths of your soul to write, and not do it.
2. Susan Juby asks, "What has been the most pleasurable or exciting moment in your writing life thus far?"
The day I discovered my great aunt had been a codebreaker in World War II, Speakeasy suddenly arrived in my mind. This was the female protagonist I'd been waiting for. There was a gang of bank robbers I'd discovered when reading old headlines in the Vancouver Province for another project and they had stuck with me. "Follow the woman" the headlines shouted when the cops were hunting the notorious Bill Bagley. This was the woman I needed: a woman who loved secrets, drawn to adventure and risk. Someone who always wanted to play the game big. Lena Stillman otherwise has nothing in common with my great aunt, but I'm grateful for the inspiration.
3. Jane Urquhart asks, "Should more dogs be the protagonist in serious contemporary novels?"
The Call of the Wild had a big impact on me as a child. Enduring suffering, learning to be free and independent — the right dog can have a lot to teach us.
4. Karen Solie asks, "Has a mentor or teacher profoundly influenced your writing or decision to become a writer? Who is this person and what have they taught you?"
Female characters who appeared to write their own stories influenced me most when I was a girl reading these novels. Anne of Green Gables, Little Women — they had something to say for themselves, and it made me want to find my own voice.
5. Vivek Shraya asks, "What is your favourite writing snack?"
Dark chocolate. Of course, that's my favourite snack whether or not I'm writing.
6. Matti Friedman asks, "In what way are your parents present in your writing?"
They shaped my worldview and made me who I am, which imbues every corner of my writing. Also, my father was very sick from when I was little and died when I was 12 years old. I think the absence of a parent made me feel more lonely, more like I had to depend on my own resources. These are useful foundations for a writer. I never had to paste labels on bottles like Dickens did, but by modern standards I was a child poverty statistic. Without my mother's strength and loving support, I would never have had the nerve to dream of writing.
7. Cea Sunrise Person asks, "If you had to choose, would you rather be poor and write masterpieces or be rich and write junk?"
Poor and write masterpieces. Basically, every writer I know has taken a vow of poverty to do what they love.
8. CC Humphreys asks, "If you were to get a tattoo that symbolized your writing, what would it be?"
A bicycle chain around my arm. I've done some long bike trips, but the symbol would apply equally well to writing a novel. The training period is long and intense, and then I wasn't sure I could make the distance, make the pedals turn one more time as I approached another summit. But I kept going. That's the only way to make it to the finish line. The end. And then you can have a beer.
Quoted in Sidelights: “Intriguing characters and an unusual setting lift this appealing debut novel,” remarked a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who called the criminal gang’s adventures “both upsetting and exhilarating.”
Print Marked Items
Speakeasy
Publishers Weekly.
265.7 (Feb. 12, 2018): p57+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Speakeasy
Alisa Smith. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.99
(256p) ISBN 978-1-250-07955-8
Intriguing characters and an unusual setting lift this appealing debut novel from Canadian author Smith (Plenty: A Year of Eating on the 100-Mile
Diet). During WWII, 30-year-old Lena Stillman, a Canadian government code breaker, deciphers Japanese military communications; a few years
earlier, she was part of a gang of bank robbers led by charismatic psychopath Bill Bagley, her former lover. She fears that her past is catching up
with her as Bill starts sending messages to her from his cell on death row. Alternating with Lena's story are chapters set during the early 1930s
narrated by Byron Godfrey, another former gang member who was shaken out of a dull, law-abiding life by Bill. Their adventures, especially in
the Canadian backwoods, are both upsetting and exhilarating, just as Lena and Byron show themselves to be simultaneously guilty and innocent.
If things don't work out for them quite as expected, that's part of the book's naive charm. Agent:John Pearce, Westwood Creative Arts (Canada).
(Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Speakeasy." Publishers Weekly, 12 Feb. 2018, p. 57+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528615484/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=62eb12c0. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528615484
Quoted in Sidelights: “provides crisp detail about the code breakers’ work and vividly describes the remote Canadian backdrop.” He summed up the novel as “disjointed but still satisfying .”
Speakeasy
Bill Ott
Booklist.
114.11 (Feb. 1, 2018): p34+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Speakeasy. By Alisa Smith. Apr. 2018. 256p. St. Martin's, $25.99 (9781250079558).
Smith's debut novel jumps between two quite different plotlines: during WWII, math whiz Lena Stillman is working as a code breaker in British
Columbia, monitoring radio traffic from the Japanese. Unbeknownst to her colleagues, Lena has a criminal past. In the 1930s, she fell in love with
a notorious bank robber, Bill Bagley, and became part of his gang, serving as getaway driver as the crew staged multiple holdups in Canada and
Washington State. Now Bagley has been captured and sentenced to death, but Lena has been receiving cryptic messages from him, suggesting
that, if she doesn't aid in his efforts to obtain a pardon, he will expose her past. The action jumps somewhat awkwardly between the Bonnie-andClyde
story and an espionage plot at the code breakers' compound, a North American version of Bletchley Park. Although there is naturally more
action in the bank-robbing story, the WWII drama proves far more involving, as Smith provides crisp detail about the code breakers' work and
vividly describes the remote Canadian backdrop. A disjointed but still satisfying historical thriller.--Bill Ott
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Ott, Bill. "Speakeasy." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2018, p. 34+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527771850/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4c73999f. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527771850
Quoted in Sidelights: “This book isn’t just about two people pursuing a common–some might say lofty–goal,” related New York State Conservationist contributor Bernadette LaManna. “It’s also about economics, environment, families and friendships, geography, history, traditions, weather, and society’s increasing disconnect from the natural world.” She advised readers: Be sure to include Plenty on your reading
list..
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of
Eating Locally
Bernadette LaManna
New York State Conservationist.
62.6 (June 2008): p31.
COPYRIGHT 2008 New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
http://www.dec.ny.gov
Full Text:
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon
242 pages, $13.95 paperback
Random House/Crown Publishing
www.randomhouse.com
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
It's day one of a year-long experiment. After many hours of shopping, much preparation and a grocery bill of nearly $130 for a single meal, Alisa
Smith turns to her longtime partner J.B. MacKinnon and says, "This might not even be possible." Smith is referring to a pact that she and
MacKinnon have made to eat only local foods for an entire year--that is, foods, beverages and ingredients originating within 100 miles of where
they live.
Apparently feeling both ambitious and optimistic, Smith and MacKinnon had invited another couple to share their first local-foods dinner. The
initial feast was a big hit, and also a big revelation, even for two sophisticated, self-sufficient journalists who, by many people's standards, live a
somewhat unconventional life.
Plenty is a month-by-month narrative of their challenging year, which turns out to be a difficult and occasionally exhilarating experiment. Each
chapter begins with a recipe appropriate to the month for which the chapter is named. Coincidentally--or not--the first recipe is for a beverage,
and the last is for a dessert.
As the year progressed, the couple's celebrity grew, requiring that they always practiced what they were preaching by buying and consuming only
local food and drink. When a rare temptation to stray from the pact arose, there's nothing in the book to indicate that they surrendered to it.
One of the more creative attempts in the effort to adhere to the pact involved making cheese. With the year drawing to a close, MacKinnon and a
friend followed instructions taken from the internet and made a cheese press cobbled together with "tin cans, old milk crates and bicycle tubes."
Because it was their first such attempt, each wax-coated round was stamped with a skull and crossbones. When sampled, however, the brieflyaged
cheese wasn't toxic, but it was exceptionally salty.
On the day after the official end of their mission, Smith and MacKinnon traveled 12 hours to collect seawater from which they planned to harvest
fleur de sel--salt. The process is miraculous in its simplicity, and it reaped sufficient salt to last through another year of eating locally.
This book isn't just about two people pursuing a common--some might say lofty--goal. It's also about economics, environment, families and
friendships, geography, history, traditions, weather, and society's increasing disconnect from the natural world. Whether you simply admire the
idea of "living off the land," aspire to try it yourself someday, or have already tried and abandoned it, be sure to include Plenty on your reading
list.
Bernadette LaManna is an editor in DEC's Bureau of Publications and Internet.
LaManna, Bernadette
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
LaManna, Bernadette. "Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally." New York State Conservationist, June 2008, p. 31.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A180402759/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=eda1776b. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A180402759
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of
Eating Locally
Mark Knoblauch
Booklist.
103.18 (May 15, 2007): p11.
COPYRIGHT 2007 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. By Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon. May 2007. 272p. Harmony, $24
(9780307347329). 641.5.
Smith and MacKinnon revolt against the industrial model of food distribution and determine to spend a year eating nothing raised or cultivated
beyond a 100-mile radius of their British Columbia home. They seek not just health benefits and fuel efficiencies but they also want to reconnect
with small, local growers, millers, fishermen, and ranchers to create a community where the consumer knows both where the food comes from
and who has produced it. British Columbia, with its Marine West Coast climate, its rivers full of salmon, and its proximity to the sea, offers
unique opportunities to pursue this resolve. Along the way, the authors learn a lot about nutrition and uncommon varieties of fruits, vegetables,
and herbs, and all the data is shared with the reader. Satisfying all their family's hungers proves daunting but scarcely impossible. Entries for each
month conclude with a recipe reflecting use of seasonal ingredients.--Mark Knoblauch
Knoblauch, Mark
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Knoblauch, Mark. "Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally." Booklist, 15 May 2007, p. 11. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A164523424/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b6bc3193. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A164523424
Quoted in Sidelights: “a remarkable leap” for a writer previously known only for nonfiction, noting that Smith “has managed to merge a gangster noir with a feminist spy thriller.” He concluded that she has produced “a satisfying and well-thought-out novel.”
ArtsTOPICS
BOOK REVIEWS
Alisa Smith's novel Speakeasy houses a history of dark secrets
by George Fetherling on May 3rd, 2017 at 12:03 PM
0
Speakeasy
By Alisa Smith. Douglas & McIntyre, 232 pp, softcover
Alisa Smith’s novel Speakeasy isn’t about U.S. Prohibition (even though one of its characters is a former rumrunner). The title refers instead to the anguish that sometimes results from having to keep dark secrets. During the Second World War, Lena Stillman, a young Vancouver woman, is a codebreaker at the naval station in Esquimalt, trying to unscramble the ciphers used by the Japanese navy in the Pacific. She is afraid of being exposed as a mole—something she is not—but is even more frightened that her distant past may come to light. “I admit my upbringing gave me the old-fashioned notion of saving myself until marriage,” she tells the readers, “but when I took up with a gang of bank robbers, to have such scruples seemed ridiculous.”
The head of the criminal gang she ran with, robbing payrolls as well as banks, is based on a historical figure, Bill Bagley, who was frequently in the headlines in Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle in the early 1930s. He is depicted here as a thuggish American with an inverted personality. “Normal things made him angry and crazy things made him happy,” is how another member of the gang describes him. These Americans view B.C. as a somewhat backward locale. As one of them says, “The streets of Vancouver were only partly paved on the major arteries, even downtown, and there were fewer imposing stone buildings than in Seattle. Still, the place gave a feeling of self-importance as though it believed it would do great things one day. Of course the people failed to realize that America was so far ahead of them. But their optimism was bracing and I felt the possibility of launching adventures here.”
This first novel is a remarkable leap for a writer who often gets awards for journalism but whose only previous book (the winner of multiple prizes) was The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. Her author’s bio gives a few hints of how she has managed to merge a gangster noir with a feminist spy thriller. For example, her aunt, it seems, was a wartime cryptographer in the 1940s, and Smith herself is now pursuing a second career as a forensic accountant. Clearly, she is interested in crime. She goes to some length to describe how Depression-era bandits operated, just as she does when re-creating how wartime signals intelligence was carried out. The result is a satisfying and well-thought-out novel marred only by a few nitpicking errors. (The FBI and the IRS didn’t have those initials in the early 1930s.) The publisher points out that Smith is working on a sequel to be called Doublespeak.