Paradise found

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Coffee has long been a beverage of choice for writers struggling to meet a deadline. For Regina creative Rolli (a.k.a. Charles Anderson), it's more than fuel: it's inspiration.

"There's an idea in every cup. Different beans trigger different flavours of ideas. You have to rummage through hundreds of ideas to find one good one," he explains. Rolli is never at a loss for ideas, as he drinks 25 cups a day. "I think more than 25 would be excessive."

Once coffee companies got wind of his obsession through a feature in New York Magazine, samples started pouring in, including the notoriously caffeine-rich Death Wish Coffee, a literary-themed roast called Edgar Allan Joe, and what was, at the time, the most expensive coffee on the globe, which sold at auction for $1,000 US per pound. "I make an espresso shot of that on special occasions only."

Fortunately, the influx of coffee samples has now slowed down to a manageable pace: "It was too much coffee for even me to drink." One of Rolli's prized possessions is a portrait of himself drinking a cup of coffee, which was created in latte foam by a Tokyo artist who follows him on Twitter. "That was the biggest thrill of my life," he says.

From his self-described strange and solitary childhood, Rolli (Charles Anderson) has gone on to artistic success.

Where it all began

Rolli learned to write by being a voracious reader. He describes himself as a "strange and solitary child" whose asthma often prevented him from being able to play outdoors. His mother was a teacher, so there were always books in the house. He pored over anthologies and other tomes that were over his head at the time, falling in love with Edgar Allan Poe's work.

From there, he progressed to being "a moody teenager who wrote moody teenage poetry, which wasn't any good."

"It was Sam Johnson who said, 'A man will turn over half a library to make one book.' Read enough and you'll inevitably pick up the mechanics of writing, the physics of it." From there, he progressed to being "a moody teenager who wrote moody teenage poetry, which wasn't any good." That phase was short-lived, fortunately, as he went on to study English at the University of Regina.

And then there's Shakespeare

"I hated Shakespeare as a teenager. His plays are inflicted onto high school students like an archaic punishment. Having instructors who actually enjoy teaching makes all the difference in the world, though. Now Shakespeare is my favourite poet."

He also took classes on children's literature. "I'm a whimsical person and a child at heart," he notes. The children's writer who appealed to him most was LewisCarroll, with his trademark British wit. "I see that a lot in my own work. Humour is always present in some way, though it can be quite dark at times," Rolli says.

After graduating with his BA, Rolli spent four years working part-time jobs to finance his passion for writing. Despite a fear of heights, he worked as a roofer. There was also a brief stint as an erotic greeting card writer, which provided fodder for a humourous personal essay that reads like straight-up fiction.

Although he hated Shakespeare as a teenager, Rolli now loves the Bard's poetry.

Variety is the spice of life

As he diversified into a variety of genres - poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction and children's literature - he sought out new markets and connections, which meant he could taper off the odd jobs and focus solely on his creative work.

Alongside his writing, he started cartooning, developing his distinctive, quirky style. He had always been a doodler and saw this as a great way to supplement his income. "Writing is very competitive, and it takes a long time to get anywhere. I needed to make more money and faster, because I'm not a fast writer. You can do a cartoon in a day and make good money as long as you sell it to the right place." The right place ended up being Reader's Digest, which bought his first cartoon.

Rolli's cartoons have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Playboy and The Harvard Business Review, and his short stories, poems, essays and flash fiction have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post and The Walrus.

He learned to be an aggressive submitter, sending out 50 submissions per month, which was key to breaking into the industry. Today, he sends less than half that, because publications often solicit him:

"I have some main clients that will buy pretty much whatever I send them now," he says. Rolli's cartoons have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Playboy and The Harvard Business Review, and his short stories, poems, essays and flash fiction have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post and The Walrus. He also does regular commissions for people from Twitter asking him to draw their portraits and for bands wanting him to create album covers.

Rolli gets an agent

Rolli has published numerous books: fiction and poetry include Plumstuff, a recently published reinvention of his out-of-print debut Plum Stuff; The Sea-Wave, which was longlisted for the 2017 Saboteur Award; and Mavor's Bones: A Gothic Novel-in-Poems, shortlisted for the 2015 ReLit Award. His children's book, Kabungo, won the Joan Betty Stuchner - Oy Vey! - Funniest Children's Book Award.

It was also the manuscript that first caught his agent's attention eight years ago:

 

Rolli's recently published book of poetry, Plumstuff, a reinvention of his out-of-print Plum Stuff.

 

"When I read that, it was something that took me back immediately to reading my favourite books as a kid. It had that sense of whimsy and magic and fun and adventure," says Olga Filina. She signed him soon after. "I think he has a very interesting perspective on the world, and that also comes across in his writing. To me, he feels like he has the best of the incredible classic authors like Louis Carroll or Roald Dahl and something special and unique that is just his.

Rolli with his agent Olga Filina.

Any work of his I read feels a tiny bit familiar, because of that amazing connection that stands the test of time."

Filina enjoys promoting Rolli's diverse body of work. "It's quite fun, because I get to have exposure to a lot of different audiences and publishing sectors. I like to introduce people to his work; if they focus on children's publishing, they also find out about his poetry and prose, in addition to his children's literature projects, and the other way around," she notes.

"I've had lots of feedback from editors who might have considered a children's project but went on and acquired an adult piece of work from him and have just been so impressed and enamoured by his writing and his style. He can have such a broad and varied career because he works in so many spaces and touches so many categories."

A key to Rolli's success is his online presence. He was an early adopter of Twitter and has grown his network to more than 60,000 followers.

Less is more

A landmark of Rolli's writing is an economy of words. "I try to be as efficient as possible. As attention spans decrease, people don't have the time or patience for wordiness. I don't want to be skimmed. An efficient style forces readers to take in every word-or they'd be lost," he says.

"Time is precious. I try to bring something enjoyable to every sentence and paragraph and want people to feel the time they spent perusing my work wasn't wasted." Critics appreciate his brevity. Of Plumstuff, Caprice Hogg of Cloud Lake Literary writes, "This is a book for those who truly love words. The words chosen are descriptive and lyrical and to the point. This shows the talent of the author, because it is no easy feat to bring about emotion with only a few syllables. In good writing and in good art, it is far easier to express oneself in lengthy diatribes; to use words and lines sparingly is an achievement."

Rolli the early adopter

A key to Rolli's success is his online presence. He was an early adopter of Twitter and has grown his network to more than 60,000 followers. "It's a lot easier to sell something when you have a built-in audience that's interested in your work. You can promote anything you publish, sharing links and attracting new readers and fans," he points out. Social media has been invaluable to the artist during the pandemic: "If I post a little video of a reading, for example, I get thousands of views-and sell books, too. You'd never get that many people (or sales) at an in-person event. I hardly ever bother with the latter anymore."

Rolli and fellow coffee aficionado Annabel Townend (aka Dr. Coffee), the owner of The Penny University Bookstore. Townsend's PhD thesis was about ideas of quality in the coffee industry.

How do you define success?

He doesn't stop too often to think about his success, though. "Success is relative. Compared to some, I'm an abject failure," Rolli remarks. His main goal is constant improvement: "I've always been thoroughly unimpressed with myself. That may not be a bad thing, as it pushes me to do better and be better and keep refining my craft," he says. "I've produced a large body of work, but I've only just begun. I have a million ideas and ambitions." Another goal is standing out from the crowd. Throughout his career, he has developed a distinct style in writing and cartoons. He explains, "People can look at it right away and say, 'That's a Rolli piece.' That's something I really strove for. I try to be as distinctive as I can, so I don't get lost in the shuffle. If your work doesn't stick out, you might as well pack it in."

Randomness allows one to discovers not only new authors but entire fields of knowledge one otherwise wouldn't encounter," he reasons. "Randomness is my mantra. It's the only way I find new books, music, artwork and even friends. Life is random, so one might as well follow suit."

A people person too

Coffee is not the only thing that inspires Rolli: "People inspire me. I'm a people watcher, an eavesdropper. That's half the fun of going to cafes or rambling downtown. All the ideas you could ever use in a hundred lifetimes are right there waiting for you - and ripe for the picking," he says. Rolli also believes randomness is important to inspiration.

"I'll wander into a shop or library, run my hand along the book spines, and pluck a volume. I don't follow prize culture. Grown adults with heads on their shoulders don't need to be told what to read. Randomness allows one to discovers not only new authors but entire fields of knowledge one otherwise wouldn't encounter," he reasons. "Randomness is my mantra. It's the only way I find new books, music, artwork and even friends. Life is random, so one might as well follow suit."

 With nowhere to go to find good coffee during the pandemic lockdowns, Rolli taught himself "to crudely play the keyboard" and started writing songs, releasing three EPs - Cahoots, Cahoots II and Cahoots III - with collaborator Duke Sims, lead singer of the legendary Brooklyn band Shinobi Ninja. While Sims plays everything on the records, the albums are credited to both artists. "I'm taking a stand for songwriters, who generally get booted to the sidelines. A songwriter ought to be in the band and have his picture on the cover. Songwriting is, after all, the most important instrument. There's no music without it." On his process, he says, "I hear the melody first, then the bass line. Once I've figured out the chords, I write up the sheet music and send it to my collaborators, who do the rest. It's great fun and a change from my usual work. I routinely get drunk off it."

Rolli says anything more than 25 cups a coffee a day is excessive.

What's next for Rolli?

He's finishing up a number of projects, including a humourous, illustrated autobiography, and a collection of his most popular cartoons and drawings. A Canadian production company has acquired the rights to his short story "The Ashtray" and is currently developing it into a feature-length film to be directed by Vancouver's Jennesia Pedri. "I'm looking forward to that. I'd like to get a cameo in it - drinking coffee in the background, perhaps," he muses.

Follow Rolli on Twitter @rolliwrites and pick up his books on his website at rollistuff.com or at The Penny University Bookstore in Regina. Check out his cartoons here.

[post_title] => Holy moly it's Rolli [post_excerpt] => In his early 20s, Charles Anderson BA’03, an aspiring children’s book writer, was looking for a catchy pen name that youngsters would remember. Before long, Rolli was born and now, the author, cartoonist and songwriter is enjoying unprecedented success. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => meet-rolli-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => https://rollistuff.com/2022/03/16/presenting-plumstuff/ [post_modified] => 2022-08-18 12:43:19 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-08-18 18:43:19 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.degreesmagazine.ca/?p=5788 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5843 [post_author] => 12 [post_date] => 2022-05-27 10:45:03 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-05-27 16:45:03 [post_content] =>

The letter is dated Nov. 14, 1951 and advises Miss Lydia Winkler that her leave of absence from Dec. 8 until Dec. 22 was not granted by the Regina School Board because she had not followed the secretary-treasurer's advice and resigned.

She'd asked for the leave in order to get married and, once married, it was necessary that she resign "to conform to the regulations of the Board." Only two years earlier, trustees had praised Miss Winkler for her "excellent work" and appointed her to the permanent staff.

Whether Miss Winkler had merely neglected to write the resignation letter or whether it was a small act of defiance, I'll never know.

What I do know is that she complied. On a wickedly cold December day, she became the beautiful bride of a handsome chiropractor, Donald Bramham. Lydia would later become an extraordinary mother, an elementary school principal, a member of the University of Regina's first graduating class, founding president of the University of Regina's alumni association and a member of the University of Saskatchewan Senate.

Lydia Bramham on the U of R campus in the 1970s. Photo by Bruce Pendlebury

This year -- more than 70 years and only a few days after Mom died at age 93 - I found that 1951 letter signed by secretary-treasurer Z.H. Hamilton and three copies of it tucked in books and jumbled amid photos and other papers.

Although Lydia gave every indication of being a feminist, she never described herself that way. For her, it belied how much she had loved being a stay-at-home mother when my older brother, Jack, and I were little. Throughout her life, she argued that a child's earliest experiences are crucial to their development.

The daughter of homesteaders, Lydia grew up on a hardscrabble, mixed farm during the Depression. Rosenfeld school - either two miles away or three depended on the telling -- had only one room with teachers barely older than some of the students.

"Children are a joy that never ends. Upon them and how they are taught rests the fate or fortune of tomorrow's world," she said at her retirement in 1993.

As for profession, "True teachers give not only of their wisdom, but also of their faith and lovingness."

The daughter of homesteaders, Lydia grew up on a hardscrabble, mixed farm during the Depression. Rosenfeld school - either two miles away or three depended on the telling -- had only one room with teachers barely older than some of the students.

According to her daughter, Daphne Bramham, Lydia was a lioness - literally born under the sign of Leo.

She was described on her final Grade 7 report grade in 1941 as a "clever student" who was "sometimes selfish. . . but cooperative." Frequently ill with pneumonia, Lydia had missed most of that school year and the year before.

My parents were each other's best friend. They worked hard together with few gendered divisions about his job or hers. They supported each other in their careers, complemented each other.

High school was a combination of in-room teaching and correspondence classes, followed by "Normal School" in Moose Jaw.

Every lesson and every experience that she'd missed as a farm kid was something she wanted for all children. For us, childhood was flurry of lessons - a mix of sports and culture that included swimming, skating, tap dancing, ballet, French and music.

We learned to swing hammers and not fall off the roof at ages that now might be considered inappropriate, as we 'helped' Mom and Dad build the cottage at Katepwa.

My parents were each other's best friend. They worked hard together with few gendered divisions about his job or hers. They supported each other in their careers, complemented each other. They revelled in the time they spent in Palm Springs after retirement. When Dad had a catastrophic stroke that left him paralyzed and unable to speak, Mom refused to leave his side. Although had never wanted to be a nurse, Lydia cared for him  at home until the final days of his life in 2007.

Lydia surveys an Alaskan glacier during a June 2010 cruise to the northern state. It was her first helicopter ride.

My mother's generation is the one that Betty Friedan wrote about in The Feminine Mystique, post-war women who set aside dreams to raise families only to wonder as they fed the laundry through the wringer washer whether this was all their lives would be.

I don't know whether my Mom read Friedan, but by the time I was in school full days she needed more in her life that sewing sequins on costumes, modelling in local fashion shows, having tea parties, making ceramic figurines and learning to swim. (Her Red Cross Intermediate badge and certificate from 1964 were also among her papers when she died.)

In September 1974 - more than 25 years after she became the first among six siblings to go to post-secondary school -- the long-delayed letter arrived. Having completed her final requirements in August for a Bachelor of Education, Lydia Bramham was invited to receive her degree at the October convocation.

So, it was back to school first as a student taking correspondence classes through the University of Saskatchewan and later through what was then the Regina campus. We all did homework together at the dining room table.

Lydia also went back to work. By the 1960s, the Regina School Board was desperate for  teachers to meet the demands of the Baby Boom generation.

In September 1974 - more than 25 years after she became the first among six siblings to go to post-secondary school -- the long-delayed letter arrived. Having completed her final requirements in August for a Bachelor of Education, Lydia Bramham was invited to receive her degree at the October convocation.

Lydia relaxing at home.

Her relief, excitement and pride in the accomplishment is unforgettable. So too is my own naivete and youthful conceit that day. She curtly rejected my suggestion that she wait until the spring convocation so that we could graduate together.

It is easy to sum up a person's life by listing their accomplishments and affiliations. For our parents, it's tempting to filter their lives mainly through that prism of our own relationship to them.

Lydia at Tofino, B.C. on Christmas Day 2012.

But lives are so much more than that as I've learned sifting through my mother's boxes. She'd saved cards, letters and documents dating back more than 50 years. There were photos of her family that I'd never seen. And there were mementoes from hundreds of thousands of hours that I'm so grateful to have shared with her.

She was a lioness - literally born under the sign of Leo. She was fiercely protective and could also be fierce. She fought for me when my father didn't want me to go to Germany to work for the summer under a university-sponsored program. It wasn't the working time, he objected to, he feared for me travelling for six weeks alone on a continent he'd never visited and never really had much interest in seeing.

For the first time, Mom was often forced her to rely on me.

But Dad had no comeback when Mom said, "Fine, then I will go and travel with her."

Despite her German ancestry, Mom had never travelled abroad before even though she'd longed to. Travelling through Europe, we became and remained best friends.

For the first time, Mom was often forced her to rely on me. It was partly because I could speak German and my French was better than hers. But after two months working as a chambermaid at a resort on the island of Foehr, I knew more about the differences between Europeans and us and how strange Canadians often seemed to them.

Lydia at Tofino, B.C. on Christmas Day 2012.

As a daughter, I knew little about her life in the classroom and as the voice of authority in the principal's office. But I came to know more about it once she moved from home to independent living and, later, to long-term care.

With each more, her life was distilled even further to those boxes of saved cards, documents, photos, scrapbooks and photo albums. They were snippets of a life lived with joy from green-face in a witch costume while she was a school principal to doubled-over with laughter when Mom, Dad and I celebrated one New Year's in Singapore to shrieking in terror at the monkeys in a Malaysian forest to walking on an Alaskan glacier after her first-ever helicopter ride.

There's a drawing of her - almost a caricature of my Mom who was renowned for her beautiful clothes, her earrings and her long hair swept up in a bun. They remembered the Mexican lunches, but most of the kids described her as kind, fair and funny.

Every time, I visited we'd go through some of them and, inevitably, there were mementoes from the various schools she'd been at and notes from students. She had an incredible memory and it was only in her final few years that she couldn't point to class photos from 30 or 40 years earlier and remember almost every child's name.

There's a scrapbook I've kept that was made by the teachers and students at McLeod School in 1981 when Mom was leaving her first posting as principal to go to a larger school. There's a drawing of her - almost a caricature of my Mom who was renowned for her beautiful clothes, her earrings and her long hair swept up in a bun. They remembered the Mexican lunches, but most of the kids described her as kind, fair and funny.

In our family, Mom was never really thought of as funny - that was one of Dad's strengths.

But I finally recognized that years later. Coincidentally, it was when the two of us were honoured to, together, be the masters (mistresses?) of ceremonies at the Alumni Crowning Achievement Awards.

For those of us blessed with wonderful parents, it is devastating when they die no matter what age we are.

Annoyingly, my mother had insisted us spending almost the entire day-of going over and over the script. And maybe it was that glass of wine that was talking, but once we got to the microphone, my Mom tossed it aside and was wonderfully funny as her unscripted self.

For those of us blessed with wonderful parents, it is devastating when they die no matter what age we are. My friend, Anne Giardini, was also deeply connected to her mother. She didn't know my mother but when I told her, she recounted the day after her own had died.

Anne and her sister went to buy extra copies of the newspaper to send to friends and relatives. Ahead of them in line, another woman was also buying the newspaper. With tears in her eyese, she turned to Anne and her sister, 'Did you know that Carol Shields has died.'

Lydia was a great Riders fan and she and her husband, Donald, had season tickets for close 60 years. Fandom is a family trait. This photo was taken July 25, 2009 - a day before her birthday - and the day of a Riders game that she went to with me, her grandson, Duncan (left) and son Jack. Both of whom are also UofR alumni.

Unlike Anne's mother, mine wasn't a Nobel Prize winner whose death was reported on the front page. And that was the point of Anne's story.

She said the death of every mother should be front page news because one of the greatest comfort a child can have is knowing that they don't grieve alone.

Daphne Bramham graduated from the University of Regina in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and German. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Arts in journalism from the now renamed Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), a Master of Arts degree in Liberal Studies from Simon Fraser University and an honorary doctor of letters from Capilano University. She is a past recipient of the Alumni Crowning Achievement Award for her work as a journalist.

In addition to Lydia's longstanding association with the University of Regina, her husband Donald Bramham was a member of the University's Senate and both their son, Jack, and grandson, Duncan, are alumni.

[post_title] => Dearest Mom [post_excerpt] => Reflections by Daphne Bramham. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => 5843-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-06-10 13:21:53 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-06-10 19:21:53 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.degreesmagazine.ca/?p=5843 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )