Niedzviecki, Hal 1971-

PERSONAL:

Born January 9, 1971, in Brockville, Ontario, Canada; married; wife is a psychologist. Education: University of Toronto, B.A.; Bard College, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. E-mail—hal@brokenpencil.com.

CAREER:

Writer and editor. Broken Pencil magazine, cofounder and editor, 1995-2002, then president of the board of directors and special projects coordinator, c. 2002—; Canzine festival of Underground Culture, cofounder and director, 1995-2002. Also correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) Brave New Waves.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

(Editor) Concrete Forest: The New Fiction of Urban Canada, M&S (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1998.

Smell It: Stories, Coach House Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1998.

Lurvy: A Farmer's Almanac, illustrated by Hoge Day and Marc Ngui, Coach House Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1999.

Ditch (novel), Random House Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001.

The Program (novel), Random House Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005.

NONFICTION

We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture, Penguin Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

(With Steve Mann) Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer, Random House Doubleday Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001.

(With Darren Wershler-Henry) The Original Canadian City Dweller's Almanac: Facts, Rants, Anecdotes and Unsupported Assertions for Urban Residents, illustrations by Marc Ngui, Viking Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity, City Lights Books (San Francisco, CA), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Adbusters, Utne Reader, Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Life, Geist, Azure, and This Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Hal Niedzviecki is a writer whose books range from social criticism to fiction. In We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture, the author focuses on pop culture and how a new kind of artist is evolving from the constant onslaught of mass media and pop culture outlets. A This Magazine contributor called the book "a happy response to the rash of ponderous, doom-ridden cultural forecasts." Referring to the book as "both accessible and dynamically complex," Liisa Kelly, in Canadian Woman Studies, also wrote: "Every word he writes is a celebration of art by and for the consumption of everyone, projecting his enthusiasm for freedom of expression and mass involvement in the creation of culture."

Niedzviecki collaborated with computer scientist Steve Mann to write Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer. The book reports largely on Mann's longtime experiment of making himself a type of cyborg by living with and wearing a camera eye and wireless Internet connection that is constantly on. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine contributor Derrick de Kerckhove called Cyborg "important for people who want to break new ground in human understanding, who feel the need to explore their own circumstances with greater acuity."

The Program is a novel about brothers Maury and Cal Stern and Maury's son Danny, who leads a reclusive, detached inner life and eventually becomes a cyborg. Maury is the author of a best-selling book titled Get with the Program that focuses on the power of slogans. Meanwhile, Cal may have something to do with Danny's withdrawal from life due to an episode one night when Cal was babysitting Danny. Joe Wiebe, writing on Straight.com, commented that the author's "potent talents show up in moments of brilliant clarity."

In his 2006 book Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity, Niedzviecki explores the idea that nonconformity has become the norm, leaving the author to question who is really special and different and whether there is really anyone left to rebel against. Examining various aspects of modern pop, consumer, and counter culture, the author discusses such topics as celebrity culture, marketing's use of individualism to sell people identical products, and political activism that is sometimes committed more to the idea of "specialness" than political goals. "Niedzviecki, who writes with a mainstream non-conformist's informality, seems torn about the despondency that the I'm Special phenomenon can illicit," wrote a contributor to the Fourth-Rate Reader Web site. "He is empathetic to people who are broken down by their failure to successfully fit in by standing out. He recognizes that it is almost impossible for a person to escape the zeitgeist of their times."

Hello, I'm Special received several favorable reviews. Zachary Houlem, writing on the PopMatters Web site, noted that "what makes Niedzviecki's groundbreaking new book so refreshing … [is that] he reminds us that pop culture itself isn't an absolute means to an end; it's the people who exchange it and want to be a part of it all that remain its most fascinating components." A contributor to Tikkun wrote that with this book the author "gives us everything that makes his brand of literary genius so … special."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Canadian Book Review Annual, annual, 1999, review of Concrete Forest: The New Fiction of Urban Canada, p. 242; annual, 2000, review of We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture, p. 354; annual, 2002, review of Ditch, p. 176; annual, 2005, Tami Oliphant, review of The Program, p. 184.

Canadian Forum, April, 2000, Derek Chezzi, review of Lurvy: A Farmer's Almanac, p. 37.

Canadian Literature, spring, 2004, Charles E. May, "Contemporary Short Stories."

Canadian Woman Studies, winter-spring, 2001, Liisa Kelly, review of We Want Some Too, p. 160.

Catholic New Times, June 5, 2005, Susannah Schmidt, "No Dreams: Christian Realism," p. 20.

Library Journal, April 15, 2006, Ellen D. Gilbert, review of Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity, p. 94.

Maclean's, August 21, 2000, Charles Gordon, "Why Ignore Local Talent?," p. 55.

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, summer, 2003, Derrick de Kerckhove, review of Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer.

Publishers Weekly, March 27, 2006, review of Hello, I'm Special, p. 76.

Quill & Quire, April, 1998, review of Smell It, p. 26; May, 1998, review of Concrete Forest, p. 29; March, 2000, review of We Want Some Too, p. 34; April, 2000, review of We Want Some Too, p. 43; July, 2001, review of Ditch, p. 39.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2006, review of Hello, I'm Special.

This Magazine, May-June, 2000, review of We Want Some Too, p. 43; November-December, 2004, Andrew Potter, review of Hello, I'm Special, p. 57; January-February, 2005, Pike Wright, "Fightin' Words," p. 8.

Tikkun, May-June, 2006, review of Hello, I'm Special, p. 81.

University of Toronto Quarterly, winter, 1999, Neil Besner, "Fiction."

ONLINE

Bookslut,http://www.bookslut.com/ (May 21, 2007), Daniel Nester, "An Interview with Hal Niedzviecki."

Coach House Books Web site,http://www.chbooks.com/ (May 21, 2007), brief profile of author.

Fourth-Rate Reader,http://lit.fictionary.ca/ (April 21, 2006), review of Hello, I'm Special.

January Magazine,http://www.januarymagazine.com/ (May 21, 2007), Linda Richards, "Hal Niedzviecki January Interview."

PopMatters,http://www.popmatters.com/ (December 7, 2004), Zachary Houle, review of Hello, I'm Special.

Smell It: The Web Site of Hal Niedzviecki,http://www.brokenpencil.com/smellit/bio/index.shtml (May 21, 2007).

Straight.com,http://www.straight.com/ (October 7, 2004), Joe Wiebe, review of Hello, I'm Special; (March 24, 2005), Joe Wiebe, review of The Program.