I will try to make something special to honour all that you gave.

Larissa Andrusyshyn, Mammoth
Myrna Kostash,  Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium
Myroslav Shkandrij, Jews in Ukrainian Literature: Representation and Identity
Rhea Tregebov, The Knife Sharpener’s Bell

I look forward to meeting you all at the ceremony to be held in Toronto this spring.

Another special event for me was the Jam. Imagine eight readings accompanied by a live jazz band. It could have gone horribly wrong, but it was magic. For a night, Les Paiens allowed me to be a musician and feel their music wrap around my words. Sons incroyable. A crammed bar, hundreds of people raucously drinking on a Saturday night and when the authors read you could hear a pin drop.  The final wrap up was a concert by Bernard Adamus. The English speaking world is missing out not knowing this artist. I loved that twenty-somethings were lined up in front of the stage, five people deep, with rapt attention singing along with every word.  So thank you to the Frye Festival for taking such good care of me. It was truly an inspiring event. A special thank you to the independent  Tidewater Books for selling all of my books. And to the people of Moncton, it felt like home.

As a child, I spent countless hours in the library. On many occasions at closing time, the  librarian would come find me lost inside a book and softly bring me back to the real world. Arms laden down, I would follow her (in those days it was always her) to the front desk. Even if it was minutes to closing and they were locking the doors behind me, I was never made to feel that I was an inconvenience.  The librarian would open the covers and comment on another book I might enjoy the next time I came in. I loved that moment when a book was signed out in my name. Back then, a card was pulled out of the back pocket and stamped, making that lovely thunk-thunk sound, and then  the card was slipped back in, and the book was mine for two glorious weeks.

Even today, when I walk into a library it feels like a sacred place to me.

So thank you for this nomination.  Thank you for making a scrawny, eight year old kid, with braces, glasses and gangly limbs feel like she was part of something magical and that it was okay to be carried away into other worlds.

The village is famous for its spa, steeplechase racing, Regency architecture, cobbled promenades, and high-end shopping. Beyond Cheltenham lay the rolling Cotswold Hills: stone walls, sheep dotted hills, ancient pubs with roaring hearths, lanes bowered in the arms of twisted trees. You feel time in this place. One can imagine looking out on the same landscapes witnessed by Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, kings and noblemen, peasants and stone-cutters, thieves and rogues. A mere twenty-seven miles from Stratford-on-the Avon, this is the cradle of the English language.

Festival highlights included: reading with Lisa Moore (February) and Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, The Salt Roads); a side trip with local author Jane Bailey through the Cotswold Hills; lunch with Kathy Lee, wife of the late author Laurie Lee; late night discussions over bottles of wine and scotch with Nalo and China Miéville delving into the heart’s pains; the wisdom and passion of Ramona and David; Trevor at the Queens hotel, who gifted me with a handmade book; the best steak I’ve ever eaten at Hotel de Vin in the Sinner’s Den, and the readers who stopped me on the street. So many generous encounters. And then there were the readings: Salaman Rushdie, Stephen Sondheim, Fergal Keane, Germaine Greer, Audrey Niffenegger, James Elroy, Martin Amos, Sebastian Faulks, Howard Jacobson… with so many distractions it took great effort to retreat to my hotel room and write.

So thanks Cheltenham for the tea, scones and clotted cream. I wasn’t convinced about the Kidney Pie and Mushy Peas or the gastronomical appeal of internal organs. But I was completely enchanted by your festival and the sight of thousands of people holding books close to their chests.

Joy, joy, joy!

And then onto Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia and the Fables Literary Club. An extraordinary elegant, speak-easy vibe in the heart of an artistic community. I finally had the chance to meet the fabulous Linda Little, author of Scotch River and she had come to hear me!  Hannah and Chuck, my incomparable hosts who made me feel like family, and opened their home on the ocean. Great food and four beautiful dogs. For the first time in my travels, I thought this is a place where I could live. I look forward to returning and enjoying Fables’ amazing musical, film and literary lineups. Even Margaret Atwood has visited.

Stephen Patrick Clare arranged a literary luncheon at the legendary Halifax Club. It was wonderful to hear Sheree Fitch and Binnie Brennan.  We gabbed about writing, fears and the creative process. Each of our writing spaces were under reno at the time, and we were working  in cramped, unfamiliar, chaotic quarters.  But we all agreed that it didn’t matter, once we were writing the din around us disappeared.

I plan to take the next few weeks to be at home, reconnect with life, and tend to my wounded Annie dog (a Sunday ER visit for a deep gash from a broken bottle at her favourite park). I have laid a floor, painted, built bookcases, rearranged all the furniture, purged the clothes closet…oh…oh…these sound like my pre-writing symptoms. Perhaps, it is time to sit and listen.