Celebrating Our Library: Books & Beyond 2022 Library Endowment Tribute Campaign

Please share your favourite library story.

When I was in grade eleven I was a rebellious, angry teenager with a strong dislike for authority. My long-suffering biology teacher Dr. Wilson kicked me out of class one hot spring afternoon because she thought I was talking in class (again). I was innocent on this occasion, but I happily took the opportunity to leave the stuffy classroom and head into the woods to take pictures. Something drew me to the school's library - not an unfamiliar pull - and while lurking in the stacks of books my hand fell on Leo Buscaglia's Living, Loving, and Learning. I then went next door to the grocery store and bought my first notebook. That was May of 1988; that book, that journal, and the Library that inspired them changed my life. It was the start of my writing "career" and pointed me in a different, slightly less rebellious, and angry direction in life. 

How important is the library to you?

Very. Can I leave it at that? The library feels like a centre-point of the community for me, where ideas, knowledge, or just plain comfort reading enter our town and spread through neighbourhoods and people's imaginations. When I step into the Library I feel as if I'm stepping into a hub for well-being, ideas, and community connection. In an age when so much information is available with the click of a mouse, the Library stands out as a focal point for a more deliberate discovery of life's accumulated whimsey and wisdom. 

What role do see libraries playing in the future?

The Library's role in our community will continue to change; and the Canmore Library has done a tremendous job of anticipating the needs of our population and working to meet them. Its hard to know what role libraries will play in the future; what is clear however is that they will play a role by remaining a clearing house of ideas, inspiration, and learning.

What advice would you give to any committed writer?

This won't come as a surprise: do it for the love of it, not because you think you can make a billion dollars dreaming up a fantasy world where eleven-year old's become wizards. For every commercially successful author there are thousands of us who simply can't not write. The ideas, stories, characters, and truths about life simply bang at our heads so long that we have to press pencil to paper or fingers to key board and let me loose on the unsuspecting world. 

What aspect of writing have you most improved in over time? What resources helped you most in this area?

Self-editing. Its comparatively easy to bang out word-soup onto the page and then stand back with a self-satisfied grin and marvel at your creation. The writer's job doesn't end there, it begins. Being able to read your own work critically, and then ruthlessly cut, and hew, and hack away all the garbage to get to the essence of your ideas and language is a much harder task. The editors I've worked with on my various books have been my greatest resource. Rather than blindly accepting their changes and suggestions, learning why those modifications make my stories just a little bit better has been essential. 

Do you have a process when you sit down to write a novel?

The process starts long before I sit down. It starts as a momentary flash of inspiration, and while that sounds cliché it's the reality for many of us. It could start as something as simple as a question, often a "what if" mental query that then becomes a series of connective tissue, and finally a detailed outline. When I teach novel writing at artsPlace we often map this out as a story board, either on large sheets of paper, or on our keyboards, and that guides us through the first draft. For me its an eighteen-month process, at least - sometimes much longer - to take that zap of neural electricity and turn it into a book. 

What have been some of the biggest obstacles or challenges you have faced as a writer?

Accepting that the purpose of writing is to feel important, or to find some self-satisfaction or ego-boost from the craft (that's why I do it), but instead that the process of writing is the product, and that the finished manuscript is simply a reminder of the questions you asked and the answers you have found.

Why do you feel it is important to tell and share stories?

Thomas King said, "The truth about stories is that's all we are." Our minds, and I believe our bodies, are composed of the stories we have been told, the stories we have discovered, and the stories we have created about ourselves to make sense of this strange, sometimes foolish, and often profound life we lead. Stories help us hold all of the pieces of our lives together. Telling and sharing these stories helps us connect with other people's stories, and in doing so weaving a tapestry of stories that binds us to one another. 

What does a day in your life look like in the midst of a writing project? Specifically, how many hours a day, and days a week would be dedicated to writing, thinking about, or purposefully not thinking about your work?

• Tea
• Read the news to distract me from writing
• More tea
• Check email in the hope that someone needs me, so I don't have to write
• Resign myself to writing
• Review what I wrote the day before, and try not to feel despair
• Write in a blind flurry of panic induced productivity. These may be my last words, after all
• Remember that I need to eat.
• More tea
• Check Facebook and other social media to ease the pressure in my head from all the words banging to get out.
• Seek additional procrastination and distraction
• Continue writing. I try to get 2,000 - 3,000 words - most of them terrible - down in an early morning session. The most I've ever written is 16,000 words in a day. I don't recommend that.
• Normal days I write for 2-3 hours often early in the morning. For some big projects that have really ripened and need to get out, I'll go much longer. In a five day stretch I once wrote 75,000 words and was at the keyboard 10-12 hours a day. Again, not recommended.
• Interact with the world, often in a bit of a daze as the characters in my head chatter with one another and I try to keep track of what they are saying.

Please share your favourite library story.

My favourite library story is when, a few summers ago, I was doing the Junior Librarian program. Each kid participating in the program was only allowed to do one week of the program, but I was allowed to do the entire summer! On the last day of Junior Librarians, one of the instructors actually cried when I was leaving. That instructor has moved out of Canmore now, but we still try and keep in contact with them. 

How important is the library to you?

The library is very important to me. I love the amazing environment in the library, and whenever I come in the library there is almost always a librarian who I could spend ages talking to. 

What role do you see libraries playing in the future?

I think that libraries will continue to be a great place for learning and fun, but I think it will grow more digitally. Who is your favourite author(s)?Suzanne Collins - The Hunger GamesSharon M. Draper - Out of My Mind 

What writers would you recommend to our readers right now?

I would recommend John Green and Angie Thomas.   

Why do you think it is important to tell stories?

I think it is important to share knowledge and history, and I think that it is important for people to relax and just lose themselves in a good book!

Please share your favourite library story.

My late mom often marvelled over how she could go anywhere and learn most anything in the world she desired from books, which she'd borrow by the dozen from the library.  As her mobility and sight deteriorated her selection narrowed to large print editions. A special human being by the name of Kelly, with Assistive Services at Mom's local library, began visiting Mom at home home twice a month to keep her well stocked with books.  She took the time to get to know Mom by learning what subjects and genres she enjoyed most.  I believe a mutual love of books opens doors to one another's hearts and minds.  Because of this and although their time together was brief, I got the sense that Kelly got to know my introverted ninety-five year-old mom more intimately than most others did in a lifetime. Mom's mind was sharp in her last week of life and she spent her limited energy writing personal notes of farewell and appreciation to a select few individuals. As a testament to how her librarian impacted the quality of my mom's life, Kelly was included among those few. 

How important is the library to you?

Ever increasing communication platforms expedite our connection and acquisition of knowledge yet dilute our attention and sensibilities.  I see our libraries as temples for the preservation of books and the cultivation of knowledge.

What role do see libraries playing in the future? 

I see the library as being one of the rare sanctuaries left to us where we can sit in silence and let the words, be they on the page, an e-reader or audio light up our imagination. 

What led you to start writing?

I started writing because I had a story that begged to be told and wouldn't let me put it down despite my trying.  

What is the best investment you ever made in your writing?

The best thing I did for the advancement of my writing was to find readers who would tell me the truth about my writing rather than flatter me.  I would give them no more than ten pages at a time and a set of questions to elicit specific feedback:

• What do you think this section is about?
• Where in these pages does the story get boring?
• Am I telling too little or too much?
• What is your favourite sentence or section in these pages and why?
• Is there anywhere in these pages that you don't trust or believe the narrator? 

Do you have any advice for emerging writers?  What question would you ask of an experienced/published writer/author?

I would urge new writers to value process over product; to engage wholeheartedly in the process of learning the craft and finding one's voice. 

Why do you feel it is important to tell and share stories?

I believe it is important to share stories to learn that we are not alone in navigating the vicissitudes of our humanity.

Please share your favourite library story.

As a child in search of more stories by my favourite authors, I found the downtown main branch of the Calgary Public Library.  It was huge. Their whole bottom floor was the children’s section.  It felt like a treasure trove but after a few months I had exhausted its possibilities.  I remember going upstairs instead of down, one day when I was eleven or so, and venturing furtively into the grownups section.  Not a kid in sight. I wasn’t sure if I was even allowed there.  A kindly librarian asked me what I was looking for and when I asked if kids were allowed to withdraw the books in the grownup library she said of course we were, and she took me over and showed me how to use the card catalogue.  It was sheer magic — all those books suddenly available to an aspiring naturalist, traveler and writer.  For free.  Every imaginable subject and style, and many I had never imagined…half a century later, I’m still blown away.

How important is the library to you?

My wife and I are in the library almost weekly, searching for new fiction we’ve not read before.  There are many fiction authors whose books we don’t have room for, but we can still devour their works because of the library.  And when I have a non-fiction writing project on the go, libraries are absolutely essential to my research — both for poring through the relevant sections of the library to find hidden gems and new insights, but also because librarians are trained researchers and can help me find resources I might have missed on my own.

What role do see libraries playing in the future?

Libraries are among the only truly democratic public spaces in our society, and they will become increasingly important in a future where information is becoming commoditized and misinformation has become weaponized.  Everyone has equal access to library holdings, and unlike the internet there is always an assurance of quality; their lawyers won’t usually let publishers put out work that hasn’t been fact-checked and reviewed for libel and hate.  In that sense, the role of libraries in defending freedom of thought and access to knowledge will only become important as the political and social information wars become nastier.

What led you to start writing?

Freddy the Pig.  I found the Freddy books in the south Calgary branch of the Calgary Public Library when I was eight or nine, and was soon addicted to that poetic pig and his adventures.  When I reached the end of the series I didn’t want to stop, so I started trying to write my own.  Like Freddy, my poems were awful.  But I was writing.

What advice would you give to any committed writer?

Just write.  Too many people don’t start, or don’t continue, because they think their work is awful or they can’t come up with a good idea.  Face it: most first drafts are awful.  Magic takes work.  So write, write, write… and then rework it until you like it.  Or set it aside and write something else.  But you’ll never be a writer unless you write, and you’ll never produce anything good until you’ve produced lots of stuff that wasn’t.

What is the best investment you ever made in your writing?

I was in a bookstore one day in my late teens and found some hard-covered lined notebooks that I really liked, so I bought four.  They became journals in which I wrote about my hikes, nature discoveries and (to my later embarrassment) lost loves and moments of angst. Ultimately I filled twelve of them before I stopped because I simply couldn’t keep up. Years later, they held memories my brain had lost. Many of my published articles began as reflections on the writings I found in those journals. 

What aspect of writing have you most improved in over time? What resources helped you most in this area?

I would say I write with fewer adjectives and adverbs than I used to, and have learned to illustrate with anecdotes or with sentences that refer to sensual impressions — scent, touch, sounds, sightings — when I need to capture the things for which I once relied on word modifiers. I’ve also come close to rendering the passive voice extinct in my writing. What helped me most in both regards was having my work professionally edited once I started publishing books.  Lynn Zwicky, in particular, stands out for me as an editor who helped me to confront my bad habits and move past them.

Do you have any advice for emerging writers?  What question would you ask of an experienced/published writer/author?

Write what you want to write, not what you think a publisher will buy.  Make writing a passion, not a profession.  And manage your ego:  what is important is not the writer; it’s the writing.  With regard to managing one’s ego: welcome any opportunity to work with an editor.  If you think you’re too special to let someone else critique your work and suggest changes, there’s a good chance you’ll never write as well as you could.

My Favorite Library Story:

When we had a pizza party for the SRP girls. They were awesome, I hope they come back next year. Not just for pizza, but for the Summer Reading Program.

How Important Is The Library to Me:

I like the library a lot. I love reading in the library after school and love to sit at the very back where the fireplace is. The library is important because I can read all the books I want for free!

What Role Do You See Libraries Playing in the Future?

Aside from reading, our library does other fun programs like the Summer Reading Game, Teddy Bear Picnics, Clothing Swaps, the Children's Holiday Market and so much more!

My Favorite Authors:

1. My mom.

2. Neil Gaiman (I read Sandman with my dad and Fortunately the Milk to my dad)

3. Tui T. Sutherland

4. Katy Farina

What Question Would I Ask An Experienced/Published Author?

I would ask them what their favorite animal is, obviously.

Why is it important to tell and share stories?

It is important to tell and share stories to teach lessons in a fun way. Recently, we had Indigious Elders come to our class to tell us stories and the lesson of my favorite story was to never trust an evil sorcerer.

Do you have any advice for an aspiring author?

You don't have to rush your process!

What led you to start writing?

I was in grade two and I had no choice because if I didn't write my story, I wouldn't get my free time.