Who said winning doesn't matter? Well, I did, five minutes before I won. I went to the Arty Awards (sponsored by the Abbotsford Art's Council) on Saturday night and didn't think I would win a Literary Award because 3 years ago I won the Outstanding Instructor Award--really, I didn't think I could win twice but I am glad I did.
The Literary Award means a lot to me-all the years of writing, teaching writing, working at being a writer . . .feels like an award well-deserved to me. I pretended I was sick for 3 weeks when I was 14 and stayed home from school to write my first novel. Over the next almost 50 years I have been a working writer; editor, publisher, freelance writer, journalist, playwright, poet.
I have taught children, youth, people with brain injuries . . .and I have promoted, mentored and been a writer all of my life. When they called my name I felt very proud. The three years I spent working on my book Rampage;the pathology of an epidemic were the hardest writing years of my life. Who said winning doesn't matter . . .i t does!
After we published my book; we published my husband Dave's book of poetry Knee-Slapper and my poetry collection bruises and bad haircuts. We have three viable and interesting literary works that will look great in our new art's centre in Port Alberni . . . can't wait to get there, can't wait to move on. It feels like creatively I have gone as far as I can in the Fraser Valley. But wait . . . don't write me off yet (that is what you do to writers, kill them with cliches like write me off)--we are producing The Vagina Monologues one more time (shows number 19/20) March 24th and doing the Memory March on the 25th in Abbotsford and I am sure there is a lot more to come whether we move by next May or not.
That is one of the wonderful things about being a writer---it doesn't matter how old you are, it is never too late to start and you don't have to retire. Metaphors be with you!
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