Inspiration

As I mentioned in other blogs, I’ve been writing since elementary school, but there are events that I specifically remember as turning points in my writing.

It’s hard to remember the order of things when you’ve lived a long time, and also when official dates don’t seem to agree with each other. Maybe the dates don’t matter, just the fact that the events happened and that they changed my life.

Andreas Schroeder’s novella or micro-novel, Toccata in “D” was, according to the front of my copy of the book, published by Oolichan Books in 1985. According to Wikipedia it was published in 1984. However, Andreas must have been reading from it quite a while before that, because I attended a reading he did at the AKA Gallery or Artist Run Centre (formerly the Shoe String Gallery). I don’t know the date, but I think it had to have been before or during 1980. At that time AKA was in a basement on 20^th Street in Saskatoon. I know they moved to the Fairbanks Morse Building in 1985. I don’t remember how I heard about the reading, but it knocked my socks off. Not only was it beautifully written and read, the book was by a young man who had immigrated to Canada from Germany in the 1950’s – as my family had. Andreas wrote about people in Germany dealing with war, love and music (and much more of course). I was hit that evening with a sudden flash: I could write about my family’s experiences as immigrants to Canada. I bought the book at some time, and still have it, signed by Andreas.

I must have started writing my own German stories soon after that because when I attended The Summer School of the Arts at the old Fort San in the Qu’appelle Valley for the first time in 1980, I was working on a story called “The Umbrella” as well as one called “Pine Trees and Snow.” The latter was not a German story, but it was subsequently published (February 1981) in Grain Magazine, I’m certain as a direct result of the critiques and work done on it in Lorna Crozier’s and Lois Simmie’s class “Introduction to Creative Writing.” It was amazing to meet other writers, to be called a writer. Then in 1981 I received the W. O. Mitchell Bursary Award to attend The School again, this time for the whole summer. I acted as a gopher (e.g. photo copying, running errands etc.) for teachers and administrators, and attended a creative writing course taught by Andreas Schroeder. I wrote a whole bunch of German immigrant stories that summer.

As a result of attending The Summer School of the Arts, I started calling myself a writer, rather than saying I was trying to write.