The voices of ghosts are easier to hear in winter. There is less competition. Feathered conversations have taken flight and settled in warmer climates, and only the “cheeseburger” request of the chickadees and the chortle of ravens filter from the pines and leafless birch along the shore. Great blankets of snow drape the forest, smothering even the echoes of scattered bird song, and the silence it creates is deafening.
 
As I stand on the shore of Lake Superior, the sun is barely above the horizon and the world is still wrapped in the purple magic of dawn. In the stillness it is the absence of the Lake’s chatter I notice most. She is rarely quiet except in mid-winter. Even on the calmest summer evenings, tranquil under star pricked skies, her waters whisper between pebbles on the shore, licking the boulders, sighing between rocks. But January has fashioned a straight jacket, restraining and silencing her.  Instead of life, a great motionless expanse of white stretches for miles in all directions, wrapping around the indigo islands, fusing shore to sea to shore.
 
And so I can hear them. The ghosts. I am not sure what they are saying to me. I am not sure whose voices reach across the vast field of ice and snow to speak. They have drawn me from the quiet cabin, the snapping fire and the kettle set to boil on the stove.
 
I listen for the ghosts I might expect. I give them permission to speak. 
 
My mother. She bought this property. Chose it to be near, but not on the surface of the Lake. She directed the clearing of the land, planted the rose bushes and Potentilla and thyme, tied pink flagging tape to the elderberry so that the chainsaws knew to leave it be, laid smooth stones to make paths from the bunkie to the outhouse, and cleared the prickly raspberry canes each year so that the new shoots had room to breathe and so to grow and bear fruit.
 
My sister. She was here the summer before she died. The summer before they both died, lying in beds far, far from this shore but not far from each other, fighting cancerous deaths that crept within their bodies, racing to devour first one and then the other. She sat on this shore, on a day when the Lake was speaking, while her children, too young to know or understand, clambered over fallen trees and tossed stones into the waves. She breathed the cool air, felt the spray against her skin. She knew.  She understood.
 
They visit me in my dreams. Perhaps they visit this place, too.
 
But it is not their voices I hear.
 
I am sure many ghosts wander these shores. It can be an inhospitable place, one that has taken far too many far too soon. The Lake, it has been said, seldom gives up her dead. Perhaps it is one of those who linger to haunt, hovering near the water or gliding through the trees, rising from the bogs and swamps or settling on rocky ledges considering their untimely deaths?
 
No. I know these ghost. We have spoken before.
 
In death, I would choose to return here. It is mesmerizing – a harsh, stunning beauty. The ancient mountains, like old men, have been worn over time, their peaks eroded, flat-topped mesas. They are no less imposing, with angular cliffs rising from the shore and marching inland for mile upon mile upon mile. The scent of pine and fir is heady, even in the chill of winter. It is a balm.
 
And then there is the Lake. She has many moods and a quick temper and I never tire of watching her.  She transforms quickly from tranquil green, liquid ice, to black tumult, when wind and water conspire to chase dark waves across her breadth, throwing them in rolling succession against the shoals and headlands, roaring as they shatter. I know enough not to be deceived by her peacefulness. Often it is then that she is most dangerous, emerging as the mist, breaking free from confines of shore and depth and surface, creeping silently, hovering over the chilled water and slipping between islands to hang in the trees, shrinking the world to a claustrophobic nebulous tomb.
 
It is a place of eternal beauty. I would cross oceans and deserts, climb mountains and swim lakes to roam these shores forever. Perhaps the ghost I hear is someone such as this.
 
No. The voices are more intimate.
 
I climb down the bank and stand on the shore. There is a ridge along the edge, jagged chunks of turquoise-white ice piled in a long thick line that wanders the beach, a reminder that the Lake fought against her captors, tossing the broken pieces ashore before the cold returned while she slept and cast a frozen spell.
 
There are tracks in the snow. I can pick out deer. They have passed frequently enough to carve a path through the trees a little ways back from the beach, not far from the buried cobble trail my mother laid. There is fox as well. Hare. Squirrel. 
 
I scramble over the ridge of ice and step, tentatively, onto the Lake. There are more tracks here, the racquet shape of snowshoes, two sets, going and coming. There is another trail, not far from the snowshoes. They are deep and round, larger than the fox’s; larger than a dog’s. There is only one set.  I am unsure whether it is coming or going. I bend and place my hand over the print.
 
The ice beneath me pops, a shotgun, echoing off the cliffs at Mink Mountain, back and forth until the snow swallows the sound and silence settles again. I know it is only the Lake shifting, stretching and turning in her winter sleep. But I grow still. It has been requested of me. Commanded, perhaps. I am frozen now, enchanted like the Lake.
 
When she speaks again, her voice is ethereal. She breathes the sounds, movement, rippling beneath me like songs between whales, like electricity traveling a wire. This is not the conversation of the dead. It is alive and vibrant all the while it is haunting. So I listen. The Lake, apparently, has much to say.
 
But she is not the ghost.
 
Cold air pricks at my bare cheeks and sends tears dancing at the corners of my eyes. My fingers are numb. And my toes. I know by now the others will be up. The fire fed, the kettle boiled and the tea steeping. I turn and climb back over the ridge, listening to the silence, interrupted occasionally by the Lake. I cross the deer trail, over the stone path, pass the raspberry patch and begin to climb the stairs to the cabin.
 
Listen.
 
I know the ghost.
 
I have heard the words whispered into the hush of a winter morning. They are words of mothers and sisters, of wolves and deer, of pine and birch and a Lake that cannot be silenced, even in the death of winter. They are the words of lives that have lived and long to live; lives not yet imagined. They are words longing to emerge on blank paper.
 
Stories.
 
The voices of ghosts are easier to hear in winter.
 
I am listening. 
 
 

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”  Madeleine L’Engle (author of A Wrinkle in Time)

There's a famous story about Margaret Atwood meeting a brain surgeon at a party. After some chit-chat, the surgeon announces that he plans to take up writing when he retires. ‘Really?' Atwood supposedly replied. ‘When I retire, I plan on taking up brain surgery.’ "

While I’m no Margaret Atwood, there have certainly been a number of hypothetical brain surgeons making similar proclamations to me.  And in learning that I write for children, something that is perceived to be a much more easily attainable objective than, oh, say writing for adults, these brain surgeons imply their own writing success is simply a matter of setting themselves to the task. Writing for children, after all, must be easy.

Bullshit.

Ask any room full of people to name a book or a story that has had a profound influence on their life, the memory of which elicits deep connections, and I guarantee a large majority of the answers will include books typically classified as “children’s”. Children’s literature lays a foundation for a lifelong affair with words and story. It damn well better be good. And good is very rarely easy.

Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) said, "I never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books, even though each of them is approximately 380 words long. Only when the text is finished … do I begin the pictures."

That doesn't sound easy.

So why do I write for children?  I write because I have something to say or a story to tell, and sometimes what I write falls best into a category classified as “children’s”.

I have recently heard from several adults who have been profoundly touched by Once Upon a Northern Night.  One woman told me she gave the book to her dying sister.  Another spoke of reading the inspirational words daily when she was in hospital recovering from surgery. Is it a book for children? Yes. And no.

In the words of CS Lewis, “Where the children’s story is simply the right form for what the author has to say, then of course readers who want to hear that, will read the story or re-read it, at any age… I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last.”

Children’s literature, at least good children’s literature, celebrates simplicity without being simplistic. It is full of rich and delicious language, complex concepts and deep meaningful ideas.  It is rife with metaphor and imagery, and a myriad of other literary devices. It engages and entertains. It is valuable. And it is literature.

So to all the brain surgeons setting aside scalpel for pen, I encourage you; creating story for children is rewarding. But don’t for a moment assume that choosing to write in a genre classified as children’s that it will be easy. 

Our readers are much too valuable for that.

 

 

 

I’ve been participating in Bird Studies Canada’s Nocturnal Owl Survey every April for about twelve years.  In the early days, my husband and I would pack our kids into the car, along with snacks, blankets, a portable stereo to broadcast owl calls, a thermos of hot chocolate and an abundance of enthusiasm.

Our route is the same each year. We begin a half hour after sunset, stopping every one-point-six kilometers along the stretch of road that swings around Sturgeon Bay and climbs up the Nor’Wester range away from Lake Superior.  It traverses varied terrain, from goose-clogged waterways, past rushing spring melts, through recently cleared boreal forest and along farmer’s fields to connect with Hwy 61 about 20 km from our starting point.

Usually by the end, the hot chocolate has spilled, the snacks are gone, the kids are asleep (or pretending to be) and my husband and I are the only ones standing outside, shivering in the chilly April air, straining to hear a reply to our recorded Boreal Owl call, while worrying about fending off the annoyed dogs from a nearby farmhouse whose barking sounds closer by the minute. And just as in Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon that inspired our very first night of owling, sometimes there’s an owl, and sometimes there isn’t.

It was a different experience this year.

This year, the kids are grown and dispersed, so I recruited some of my writing group to tag along and lend a listening ear.

We set off after yoga class, clasping mugs of tea, chatting editing and agents, African safari’s and child soldiers, granting programs and indie publishing.  We managed to steal a few minutes of conversation time to refresh our knowledge of owl calls, but only just. 

The night was clear, not a wisp of cloud in the sky, and temperatures were mild.  Our first few stops were disappointing. The honking geese and rush of melting ice tumbling down rocky watersheds to the lake interfered with our listening, and we heard only faint high pitched hints of Northern Saw-whet Owls, the trilling of American Woodcocks, and the thud…thud…thud-thud-thud-d-d-d-d of Ruffed Grouse calling out into the darkness.

I reminded them of Jane Yolen’s wise words: sometimes there’s an owl, and sometimes there isn’t.

As darkness wrapped around us, the stars pricked vividly to fill the inky sky.  Far, far away from the lights of the city, and hours before moonrise, they twinkled to brilliance until the ceiling above us was awash with diamonds and alive with the creatures of myth.  Ursa Major, the bear along with her cub, the Pleiades, Polaris, pointing north, Cassiopeia, Venus… even Draco, the dragon, was on the prowl.

At each stop, we broadcast our CD, and listened, gazing up at the shadowed points of pine trees poking into the sparkling sky, and as the night progress, we watched Orion march towards the west, his bow always ready.  We imagined the creatures we knew were crouched hidden in the trees, or perched on branches peering down at us.  We felt their eyes on us. We gave them voices.

Between stops, we munched on fresh cheese curds and pretzel crisps, sipped San Pellegrino and told racy jokes.  We paused to say hello to a moose after his dark form broke the beam of our headlights when he ambled across the road. He took a moment to stand in the bush and gaze inquisitively at us, ears pricked as we commented on his beauty.

And then, at our last stop; who-who-who… whoooo, whoooo.

A Great Horned Owl.  No... two.  Calling to each other. 

They paid little attention to the rush of highway traffic; ignored our broadcast Boreal Owl and Great Grey Owl calls. They conversed. We stood long after we needed to, eavesdropping on their conversation.

We didn’t see them. But they were there. 

And as we drove home to fall into warm beds, we knew; sometimes there’s an owl.

 

"Once Upon a Northern Night" has been shortlisted for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award!  What a thrill it is to have the work Isabelle Arsenault and I co-created recognized. The award itself will be announced in November, but I've been enjoying the spin-off the nomination has inspired -- a trip to Toronto to do a reading at Word on the Street, an invitation from CBC Books to go to Calgary and spend a day at a school talking about books and writing with kids, and a book signing with fellow nominees at INSPIRE, the Toronto International Book Fair, in November.

During a conversation with an interviewer the other day, I was asked the question "How would winning this award change you as a writer?"

Interesting thought.

Awards always come with exposure.  Great for the book, for sales, and ultimately, me. They also often come with a cash prize.  To an artist, money is time.  Time to ponder.  Time to experiment.  Time to create. Time to listen to the stirrings of the soul, without being burdened by the realities of existence.  Would that change me as a writer?  To have more time? Perhaps.

But ultimately, I don't write to win awards.  I write because there is a story, insistently tapping me on my shoulder, asking to be told.  I write because there is an image I want to capture and form into words, layering them onto the page where they can make their way into the imaginings of the reader.  I write because there is something I want to say, a feeling or emotion I want to evoke.  I write because I want to create and connect.

And I don't think that will ever change.

I truly believe that life is lived in the small moments.  It exists in a cup of coffee, a sunrise, a hot shower, a good book, Tuesday night dinner, lunch with friends, a young child crawling into your lap for a cuddle, (or in my case, a man-boy giving you a hug.)  It is lived on an average winter morning when the first snow has blanketed the yard and the hoarfrost hangs in the trees.  It exists in the everyday.  When we begin to live in these small moments, that’s when we are truly alive.

I wrote “Once Upon a Northern Night” because I wanted to capture one of those small moments.  The beauty of the north, the assurance of love that creates warmth, even on the darkest and coldest winter night.  The simple truth that even when we are asleep, even when we cannot see or hear or touch, there is life and hope and love. 

And we know it’s there because when we open our eyes, we can see evidence of it all around us, like imprints in the snow.