Jean E. Pendziwol
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Considering Education during COVID-19

5/8/2020

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PictureThe McDonald clan aboard Winter Solstice in 1981
In 1981, my parents took their three (teenage) daughters and moved aboard our 32' sailboat for a 14 month adventure sailing from Thunder Bay to the Bahamas and back. I was going into grade 11. My sisters (one older, one young) and I had correspondence courses with us, and our dedication to them was hit and miss. At best. Basically, we had a year off school. Did this change our education? Yes! We learned differently that year - history at historic sites, social and cultural studies in the communities we visited, geography by looking at charts and stars, and we read, read, read.

When we returned to our "regular" education in school, we adapted to that intermission, completed some the courses we hadn't finished (I think I did grade 11 and grade 12 history at the same time), or in my older sister's case, took the extra time needed to complete the courses she wanted to have to graduate. We were changed by the experience, but we were in no way adversely affected by the time we took away from our formal education.


Flash forward a few years to 2007 when we decided to take our own kids on an adventure and backpacked around South America for six months. We did NOT take schoolwork with us, preferring that they engage in the experience. Admittedly, we were already homeschooling two of the three so were comfortable approaching learning in a different way. They have all gone on to succeed in their own way in their own time, with post-secondary education. They have all said they would not trade that time travelling for anything.

​As we collectively respond to a global pandemic, governments are looking for ways to balance economic and social needs with responsible public health policy.  I am not going to comment on those decisions.  What I want to do is comment on our perception of what comprises an education and suggest that making a choice to teach/learn in a different way that may result in a child "losing" a year will not be the end of the world, or the end of that child's potential to succeed. I've been there.  It can work, and work really well.

Are you choosing to send your child back to school? I support you. Are you choosing to keep your child at home? I support you. The emotional and physical needs of you and your child as you navigate the unique challenges of this pandemic are paramount. Having a different learning environment for academics for a year or two will not destroy your child's future. In fact, it may lead to some beautiful and creative opportunities.  You've got this.

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The Pendziwol family in Peru, 2007
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A Life Intentional

6/2/2019

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I could see one of my sons out of the corner of my eye. He was ascending much more quickly than I was; he had the strength and agility that comes from hours spent at the climbing gym and multiple summer days exploring rocky cliffs throughout northwestern Ontario. It mattered little that this was his first time climbing a ridge of ice. 
 
I, on the other hand, had to think about every move, wedging the crampons attached to my boots firmly into the frozen waterfall, repeatedly swinging the picks until I was certain they were secure enough to hold my weight as I slowly clambered up the knobby surface. 
 
When he reached my level he hollered, “Take!” to his belayer before leaning back into his harness.
 
“Turn around,” he said. “Look at where you are.”
 
I took a deep breath.
 
I’m not a climber. I am not a thrill seeker. Not at all a risk-taker. In fact, I’m a worrier. I have spent my life in constant battle with a mind that can quickly and irrationally compose a variety of horrific scenarios for any situation, to assume the worst, and to tumble those thoughts in an endless cycle of “what ifs.”  A mind that works well for the art of writing, but not so great for the art of living.



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Of Quilts and Lighthouses

25/7/2018

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I learned some time ago that life is lived in small moments, in coffee on the deck in the morning, in a good book, in a moonrise or sunset, in Tuesday night dinner with the whole family around the table. I’ve also learned that it is important to celebrate successes and milestones, no matter how small. Life as a writer can be challenging, especially given how our craft opens us up to rejection and criticism and it is often difficult to separate self from art.
 
It’s been busy lately.  We’re renovating an old family home; selling the one we built 25 years ago where we raised our family. We’re packing (how did I collect so many books?!?!?), patching, painting, purging (but not books).
 
Through it all, we’ve paused to celebrate; my daughter’s engagement, the shortlisting of ​The Lightkeeper's Daughters for the Northern Lit Award and the longlisting for the HWA Debut Crown, the sale of our house. 
We’ve toasted the US release of the paperback and its hauntingly beautiful new cover, and its selection for “Books on the Subway” (https://www.booksonthesubway.com) and the Books Sparks Summer Reading Challenge (https://gobooksparks.com/src2018-week-7-2/)
 
This past week, we slowed life down to spend time with my husband’s mother, Eleanor, who was visiting us from Vancouver Island. We spent hours enjoying good food, great conversation and many games of Bananagrams (yes, they do sometimes beat me.) 


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Oplopanax Horridus - Devil's Club

13/9/2017

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We called it devil’s club. It was large, growing as tall or taller than me. Its leaves resembled those of the maple, and it produced bright red berries that Mother told us we must never, ever eat. But the most distinctive feature of the plant was that it was covered, from stem to leaves, with long, sharp spines. (page 146 – The Lightkeeper’s Daughters)
​When setting plays such an important role in the development of a story, elements of that setting also come to influence the plot and characters. In The Lightkeeper’s Daughters, Lake Superior evolved as a character, supported by the animals that populate the boreal forest – wolves, black bear, ravens and caribou. Even the vegetation – the trees, plants, moss and lichens, -- added texture, and at times, served as a catalyst for events.
 
My research into Porphyry Island revealed that it was home to unique plant species, including some arctic disjuncts and rare orchids. This prompted me to weave a story thread that included adding the characters of Alfred and Millie, biologists researching wetlands and documenting the vegetation found there. But the presence of the plant oplopanax horridus, or devil’s club, offered more opportunity for the environment to play into the story, and it appears in several scenes.

Common along the pacific northwest coast, devil’s club grows in the understory of moist forested ecosystems from Alaska down through BC to Washington and east to the Rockies.  Its presence on a few islands in Lake Superior, including Isle Royale, the Slates and Porphyry Island, is a bit on an anomaly. The plant is characterized by a dense armour of needle-like spines that covers the stems and undersides of the leaves. In addition to the scratches and discomfort of being scraped by the spines, contact with the plant can cause severe skin reactions.

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Lighthouse Keepers of Porphyry Island

25/4/2017

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As a child, I loved to visit Porphyry Island. I don’t recall that we were there often; my parents preferred the relatively isolated anchorages of Loon Harbour and Otter Cove along the north shore of Lake Superior, but I have fond memories of visiting Porphyry and found inspiration there as a setting for The Lightkeeper’s Daughters.
 
The Island itself sits near the entrance to Black Bay with the light station marking the shipping channel to Thunder Bay, east of Isle Royale. Its name is derived from the volcanic rock common on the island. Even now, when I visit, I comb the beaches looking for “Thunder Eggs” – igneous stones with crystalized centers. The light was the second commissioned on the Canadian shores of Lake Superior and became operational on July 1st, 1873.

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Painting with language, speaking with art: the co-creation of picture books

13/3/2017

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PicturePublication date August 1, 2017
While I’m dipping my toes into the world of adult literature with the publication of my debut novel The Lighkeeper’s Daughters this summer, I am still very much inspired by the storytelling medium of the children’s picture book. As a writer with a tendency to be concise and poetic, I enjoy painting with language, and I’m challenged by the restrictions that are inherently part of creating a picture-book length story that typically falls between 500 and 1000 words. Unlike other forms of literature, there is something unique about picture books in that the author and illustrator independently create a cohesive marriage of word and art that combine to create a story.
 
People who are unfamiliar with children's book publication find it interesting that the writer and artist do not usually collaborate. The outcome is a collaboration—a co-created piece of literature—but the process isn’t necessarily so. It is the role of the illustrator to be inspired by the words and bring their interpretation—their story—to the book.
 
In some cases, the designer at a publishing house will request input from the author with respect to confirming accuracy and intent of the text or when an illustration needs to carry part of the story as defined by the author. However, the choice of the illustrator, the medium they work in, and the content of the illustrations are elements left to the art department and the creative mind of the illustrator.


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The Lake, it is said, never gives up her dead...

6/2/2017

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Every writer approaches the process of creation differently, finding the seed of inspiration in a single inciting incident or a complete story, a character or an emotion, an ideology, or the dynamic between individuals. For me, the seed is often setting.
 
My life has been influenced by where I live; by the temperamental yet stunningly beautiful Lake Superior, by the boreal forests and the creatures that call them home, by the ancient worn ridges of the Nor’Wester Mountains, and the myriad of lakes and rivers that are flung like a jewels across the vast unpopulated stretches of northern Ontario. And so, this place seeps into my stories, affecting plot, defining character, and molding themes. And in some cases, becoming a character itself.
 
As a child, I spent many summers sailing on Lake Superior.  My parents owned a sequence of sailboats, starting with a sixteen-foot daysailer and eventually graduating to a thirty-two foot sloop that that allowed us to venture farther. Our weekends and summer vacations were spent on the boat exploring the islands and anchorages of the north shore.



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Easy as pie

23/9/2016

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My grandmother, Evelyn (Cummings) Obergh, taught me how to make pastry, something she excelled at. She made it look as easy as... well… pie. I don’t make it often, not so much because I don’t do it well, but because I’m not overly fond of pie. Except maybe lemon meringue. Or pumpkin. Or wild blueberry.  Sometimes apple.
 
Oh hell, I hate making pastry. 
 
What will motivate me to make piecrust is a request from my family for tourtiere, a savory mixture of ground beef and pork with onions and sage and just a sprinkling of nutmeg for sweetness, tucked inside a flaky, tender crust. My mother's recipe, it's often the centerpiece at special dinners like Christmas Eve and is somewhat bomb-proof in that the juicy meat pretty much guarantees that no matter how badly I screw up the pastry, it will still be delicious.
 
When my grandmother showed me how to mix and roll and assemble pies, she also passed along the family tradition of marking the top crust with the image of a sheaf of wheat.  While I learned that it’s important to slice holes in the pastry to allow the steam to escape during baking, the scribing of the dough carried with it more significance than a simple decorative venting system for a bubbling concoction of apples, brown sugar and cinnamon. The sheaf of wheat was about gratitude. As I watched her dust flour on the countertop and wield her rolling pin quickly and efficiently over perfect balls of dough (that never crumbled and cracked like mine do), she told me that she adopted the wheat design after she was married.  Her mother-in-law passed it along to her. The Oberghs were so grateful, she said, for the abundance of food they found in their newly adopted country, for the availability of grains, for the basic sustenance of bread, that she rendered wheat onto the top of every pie as a reminder of how blessed they were to be Canadian.
 
My grandmother was proud of her pastry. I heard that for years, she brought a freshly baked batch of rich butter tarts, with the golden pastry shell cradling plump raisins and melted brown sugar, baked to gooey perfection, to her sister’s house on New Year’s Eve. And every year, her sister Vi would also have a freshly baked batch of butter tarts laid out on a crystal plate on her buffet. Each would claim their tart superior to the other’s. This went on, apparently, for decades. There was never a clear winner, but I understand the family suffered little hardship in the annual sampling of tarts and the ongoing debate over whose was better.
 
Gram was a character who came of age during the depression, who used an eyebrow pencil to draw a line up the back of her leg so it looked like she was wearing silk stockings, whose mother died of alcoholism at a young age, whose husband was wounded in the war. She loved a good party, good scotch, a good hockey game, and had mastered the art of playing “Sugar Blues” on her nose. She used to joke with her sisters that after they died, they were all going to come back as seagulls and shit on everyone who had ever done them wrong. As her siblings passed away, one by one, she’d always keep one eye on the sky when we visited the waterfront, just in case.
 
When my grandmother was hospitalized before she died, I baked a batch of butter tarts and brought one up for her. She took a bite of it and told me that it was good... but not as good as hers. There was a twinkle in her eye.
 
My daughter is coming for a visit this weekend. Among requests for food like homemade bread and prosciutto arugula pizza, she asked for tourtiere. When I made the pastry, I scored the top with three stalks of wheat, using the tip of the knife to mark the heads of grain and added a few blades of grass at the base of the sheaf. Because I remember. Because I’m grateful.
 
And then I added a couple of extra marks that look just a little bit like a seagull. 
 
 
 

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When setting becomes character

31/8/2016

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Place has always played an inspirational role in my writing. The geography, climate, people, history and cultures inherent to northwestern Ontario have influenced my work, weaving themselves into my stories. Having spent a significant portion of my childhood on and around Lake Superior, it is not surprising that this magnificent body of water became part of the setting for The Lightkeeper’s Daughters. 
 
I grew up sailing. From early childhood, my weekends and summer holidays were spent aboard our family’s sailboat, cruising the north shore of Lake Superior, visiting places like Silver Islet, Porphyry Island, Loon Harbour, Otter Cove and Isle Royale. In spite of the magnificent beauty of the Lake, the cold temperatures and isolation meant that anchorages were rarely crowded, and there was plenty of opportunity to observe wildlife and experience the majesty and solitude of the environment.
 
Considered to be the largest freshwater lake in the world, in reality, Superior is more like a sea. It has almost 3000 km of shoreline, an average depth of 489 feet (150 meters or 81.5 fathoms) and temperatures that hover around 4 degrees Celsius (40 F). Fog is common in spring and summer. October and November breed the infamous storms that have claimed more than one ship. Superior is cold and vast and temperamental. And stunningly beautiful.
 
As my story evolved, the Lake emerged as a character in its own right. Not only did it provide the setting – a setting that was dynamic and evolving in itself – it affected and changed the lives of the characters whose stories were being lived out on the pages. It was integral to the story. It was important to me, as a writer, that the reader viscerally experiences the setting, seeing it, hearing it, tasting it, feeling it – experiencing it. And eventually, the Lake took an active role in shaping the lives of the Lightkeeper’s Daughters.
 
Here are a few ways to consider using setting as character:


  • Make your setting inherent to the story. Would it be the same if it were set someplace else? What unique qualities of the setting can be employed to enhance the storytelling?
  • Engage all of your reader’s senses, allow them to see, feel, hear, taste – experience the setting. When they close the book, do they feel like they’ve been there?
  • Keep the setting dynamic. A static setting is a backdrop. An evolving setting that possesses moods, that reacts and changes, becomes living.
  • Have your setting interact with the characters. How do they develop through their interaction with the setting? Does the setting challenge them? comfort them? antagonize them? It’s important to see the setting through the character’s eyes. It is how the character views the setting that will make it unique.
  • Use the setting to create emotion, mood, atmosphere.
  • Allow the setting to directly influence the plot. What role can it play in changing the course of events?
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We were on the beach, the black volcanic sand warm beneath our bare feet. The Lake was calm and chatted quietly as it breathed between the rocks. Emily was there, but it could have been just the two of us; he with his violin and me braiding the purple beach pea flowers into a garland for my hair. He was standing on the point, his brown hair tousled by the wind, his canvas pants rolled to the knees, fiddling like an ancient Greek Siren, drawing not sailors but the young lightkeeper’s daughter under his spell. It was a tune I hadn’t heard before. Sweet, airy. The song was captured by the trees, filtered by the sand and shared with the waves, but I didn’t mind. My pulse quickened with every phrase. 

​- except from The Lightkeeper's Daughters (HarperCollins 2017)

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Listening to voices from the past

12/8/2016

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Lighthouse. The word itself implies comfort; illumination, the promise of shelter. I grew up sailing on Lake Superior, and one of my favourite places to visit was Porphyry Island where we could travel from the harbour up to the lighthouse and greet the keepers. I thought it a wonderfully romantic, idyllic life, perched as they were on edge of an island, with expansive views of the lake. I didn't think of the isolation and hardship, the close and often tumultuous relationship between land and wind and waves, between the beams that stretch across the darkness and the vessels they guide towards safe passage. But it wasn't surprising that a lighthouse crept into my writing. They fascinated me.
 
The history of lighthouse keeping on Lake Superior is fraught with tragic deaths and shipwrecks, liberally sprinkled with colourful characters, and steeped in the harsh environment of what can only be described as a temperamental inland sea. It is there I found inspiration for The Light Keeper’s Daughters, in the men and women who set out in questionable weather, sometimes in equally questionable vessels, early in spring to light the beacons and sound the fog horns. I was intrigued that they made for themselves homes in remote locations, scraping gardens out of rocky ground, planting lilacs, fishing, hunting, and whiling away long hours in solitude. Wives often became assistant keepers, children relished the freedom of a playground that included the lake and forests, and the love of the profession passed from generation to generation. 
 
I was fortunate as a writer to be able to have access to the journals of a lighthouse keeper, Andrew Dick, who served on Porphyry Island, the setting for my novel. His tenure there began in 1879 not long after the light was commissioned, and continued for 30 years. He chose to live on the island year-round with his indigenous wife Caroline and their ten children, some born on the island, and some, sadly, who are buried there. The journals, or daybooks as he called them, captured his personal writing – his opinions, the number of eggs his hens laid, fish caught, and visitors to the island, and on the back cover of one volume, instructions on how to boil an egg. They’re a fascinating snapshot of a lost time, a lost profession. 
 
While The Light Keeper's Daughters is set a few decades after the Dicks were keepers at Porphyry Island, the writings of a Scottish keeper and his Ojibwe wife, the anecdotes about his family, the meals they ate, the anguish of losing a child, the treks across the Black Bay to Porphyry, and even the number of eggs his hens laid helped frame life on the Island. The voice of Andrew Dick speaking from the past was an absolute treasure.  And I listened. 


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A page from Andrew Dick's journal, 1901. Courtesy of the Thunder Bay Museum.
Excerpts from Andrew Dick's Journals:
​ 
Tuesday, June 22, 1987  Did not even have a flag to hoist. Mighty poor Govt that don’t have a flag at every lighthouse. Long life to Queen Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. I have nothing to celebrate her Jubilee well only this old pen.
 
Monday May 31, 1900 Georgina came today with Alice and her family getting away from the smallpox.
 
Wednesday, June 24, 1901 Agnes died tonight at 7 o-clock PM the same month she was born in, her mother died the same month and same date. Agnes age 36 years.
 
Friday March 7, 1902 George… had a long and hard tramp from Silver Islet down Black and through the bush. Brought the mail.
 
Friday, March 6, 1903 …got a load of caribou home this morning, went to swamp, took Emily’s piece of rope home as we have enough meat. My piece of rope is now called a snare, Emily’s rope is not promoted yet.
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The Art of Reading

30/5/2016

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I love going into classrooms to talk to students about my writing and my books and all the fantastic things about being an author. I usually field questions about how many kids I have (three, but they’re all taller than me), whether I have any pets (one loveable mutt and three sometimes-egg-laying chickens) and how much money make (I haven’t quit my day-job).
 
Now that I have an adult novel in the works (The Light Keeper’s Daughters – HarperCollins 2017), there is a new audience interested in my process and my road to “success” -- writers. Everyone seems to want to know the secret to landing that elusive agent and first novel contract, whether I get up at 5:00 am to write? (hell no…), if I outline or free flow the plot? (a little of both), how I stay inspired (that’s another blog post.)
 
I often end my sessions in classrooms with a question for the kids: if you want to be a good writer, what is the most important thing that you need to be doing? I get all kinds of answers, like keeping a journal, learning grammar, writing stories –  but not the one I’m looking for. If it’s taking too long for the students to figure it out, I toss it to the teachers. I’m surprised how many don’t know.
 
Now I'm asking that same question of fellow writers. What is the most important thing you need to be doing in order to be a good writer? The answer is quite simple.
 
Read.
 
Oh sure, you need to write. But you could have the best writing routine; up at dawn, a thousand word goal met every day, plot outlined on flash cards arranged on your dining room table; follow the best writing blogs, master social media, attend conferences, go on retreats, and belong to critique groups, but you cannot call yourself a good writer if you’re not a reader. You cannot write well if you are not reading well. It’s that simple. 
 
I’m not surprised when people tell me they don’t have time to read. I used to feel the same. Reading was not “productive” but rather an indulgence; an idling in a world where our lives are tightly scheduled and activities results-driven.
 
I now have a few days a week that I devote to my work as a writer. Lately, that work has been reading. I have learned to put aside any feelings of guilt about the groceries that need buying or the emails I should be answering. I have recognized that spending time pursing the art of reading is a necessary and integral part of advancing my art as a writer.
 
And when my husband finds me sitting in front of the fireplace, teacup in hand, lost in the pages of a book, I look at him and tell him quite simply, “I’m working.”
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Winter Ghosts

10/2/2016

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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. 
 

 
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Writing for children isn't "easy"

11/5/2015

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“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.


 

 

 

4 Comments

Sometimes there's an owl...

15/4/2015

3 Comments

 
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.


 

3 Comments

The TD Awards and Duck Confit Poutine

9/11/2014

1 Comment

 
While writing can be a solitary pursuit, I, like most writers, have my little group of whacky eclectic fellow scribblers who provide me with support and encouragement.  We call ourselves the CSS Writers, dubbed as such by a patient waitress who proclaimed that we were cute… and slightly scary.  We added in the sexy ourselves - just because.  Mostly, we get together to eat duck confit poutine and drink red wine and discuss all things writing.  Sometimes we get together to write.  Always, we edit the menu at whatever establishment we are patronizing, splashing the page with bold permanent marker, tsk-tsking the obvious errors and debating the more subtle ones.  We have never met a menu that has stumped us, and we are not swayed by the sweet talk of waitresses telling us we are cute. We aren’t that impressionable.

I recently had the incredible opportunity to attend the Canadian Children’s Book Centre annual Gala in Toronto as a finalist for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for 2014.

When I stepped off the private elevator into the prestigious Carlu in Toronto for the gala, the introvert in me came strongly to the fore and I longed to be back in my writer’s uniform of pajamas sitting with my laptop and a cup of tea.  This was a far cry from our CSS outings. The art moderne décor was stunning, the room buzzed, waiters milled about with glasses of wine and trendy appetizers, and the name tags on the close to 700 guests were a who’s who in children’s book publishing and an index of my book shelf at home.  I shrank against the marble columns clutching a glass of wine, struggling to keep my skirt from riding up and dashed off a quick, frantic, expletive-laced text to a friend who I knew would understand.  I realized a fraction of a second after pressing send that I had selected the wrong recipient and my message was irretrievably on its way to the inbox of my employer’s husband.  With my future employment now in jeopardy, I realized I should attempt to make a go at this writer’s thing and peeled myself away from the wall and sailed out into the crowd.

What a tender moment when I noticed the centre attraction in an elaborate spread of food – a poutine bar.  Complete with duck confit. I wasn’t so far out of my comfort zone after all.  I toasted my group, tossed back my wine and dutifully consumed the crispy fried potatoes, succulent duck confit gravy and fresh cheese curds in their honour.  It was the least I could do.

The awards were presented in an auditorium that had been favoured by Glen Gould.  Shelagh Rogers was the host.  Russian circus performers entertained.  Awards were announced.  I met new and interesting and wonderfully creative people and reacquainted myself with others.  I didn’t win, but I hadn’t expected to (there was a brief moment of panic when the thought occurred to me that there existed a remote chance I might, and without a speech at the ready would be humiliated, mumbling pathetic disorganized thanks after the eloquent ones we’d been treated to – but it passed.  Rather quickly, I might add.)

My skirt still rode up all night and there was the question of my wandering text message coming back to haunt me.  But all in all, it was an incredible evening celebrating children’s books and their creators.  And I got to meet Shelagh Rogers.  She liked my shoes.

What a humbling, honouring experience to have Once Upon a Northern Night, my quiet story about a simple, small moment, recognized as one of the top Canadian children’s books published this year.  Isabelle Arsenault’s illustrations and Groundwood Books’ expertise brought my words to life in a way that allows them be enjoyed and shared and experienced by so many.  I am grateful.

So much so that I didn’t even take a Sharpie to the menu.

 

1 Comment

Why do I write?

26/9/2014

1 Comment

 
"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.
1 Comment

Winter Musings

9/1/2014

2 Comments

 
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.

2 Comments

    Jean E Pendziwol

    Author

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