uh oh. -8 this morning

This is not a white sandy beach.

Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild 50th and Hicks Awards

Well, this was fun. This past weekend, Rick, Jim and I went to Regina for our first SWG conference. I was lucky enough to win first place in the John V. Hicks Award for Long Manuscript Fiction. The awards were presented Saturday and I was joined by second place winner Tim Blackett and third Beth Goobie. I got to spend time with my old SWG mentor Joanne Gerber, and met a lot of other writers like Annette Bower who, weirdly, has a connection to Hank Buck, the farmer from Abbey who first told me the true story of Violet and her father. That story became the inspiration for my novel. A great conference, and I’m looking forward to it next October 23-24 in Saskatoon. And, yes, we hauled home a six-pack of the Bushwakker Brewing’s commemorative SWG Golden Anniversary beer, The Unreliable Narrator, infused with Writer’s Tears whiskey and hemp. Perfect.

Hicks winners Tim Blackett, me, Jillian Bell, President SWG, and Beth Goobie.

Receiving Hicks Award from SWG President Jillian Bell.

With my SWG mentor Joanne Gerber.

Still getting ready.

Deer in headlights.

Getting ready to read.

Meeting Annette Bower.

Jim and me, with the Unreliable Narrator

My award wall.

Remembering Russell

A few summers ago, we got to know a crow. A lot like this one. I’m still mourning the loss of one of my favourite earrings. He plucked it right out of my ear while he sat on my shoulder. I suspect it’s stuffed under a shingle on some neighbour’s roof.

I’ll try this

Best Halloween display. Ever.

Long clap to our next-door neighbours. Brilliant.

Hamlet

I love this guy. Jim doesn’t so much. Ever try to take a selfie with a pig who knows good and well there are still more Timbits in the box?

One of my characters came for coffee

This sweet man walked into my office at the Saskatchewan Association for Community Living (now Inclusion Saskatchewan) in 1999 to make a donation in memory of his late friend Billy whose daughter Violet just passed away. This is Henry ‘Hank’ Buck, who sat down and told me the true story of Violet, who had an intellectual disability and her farmer father. I remember sitting there thinking, “That’s it. Now I have to write a novel.” Hank gave me his blessing to take the true story and fictionalize my own. I worked on it off and on for several years, set it aside, sent it off to publishers way before it was ready. Two years ago, the big push began and now this story will be my first novel, published by Burton House Books in Regina. Hank is immortalized in this story, so it’s very surreal to have one of my characters come to my house for coffee. Thanks, Hank. The wouldn’t have happened without you.

It’s coming

Just around the corner.

Maybe fortune cookies can predict the future?

Given my husband Richard’s appointment last week to serve as Associate Dean, College of Education, to start a new school on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and my recent win of the John V. Hicks Long Manuscript for Fiction Award, we were a little spooked by our fortunes at lunch a couple of days ago.

Back in the saddle

My husband Richard, a professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, has been retired for five years. He was getting ‘itchy,’ and then this came along. He’s been tapped to be the Associate Dean, College of Education, tasked with starting a new school. Thanks to a generous donation by Jane and Ron Graham, Rick will be at work for the next several months to make this happen. Pretty proud of him!

College of Education Dean Michelle Prytula, Dr. Richard Schwier, Associate Dean, School of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Jane and Ron Graham at the announcement last week.