My Life’s Achievement So Far
June 24th, 2025
“Lifetime achievement” . . . that’s rather disconcerting. I’m only 78, and there are still so many books I want to write. I hope to live to 105! Then I will have a huge party and sing:
And if you should survive to one hundred and five
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive.
So I’ve decided to rename this award: “My Life’s Achievement So Far” award.
Looking back, it seems inevitable that I became a writer. My mother read to me and my younger brother constantly, and my prairie father made up fairy tales where Cinderella’s coach was pulled by gophers. The three grandparents I knew often told me stories of their early lives in Canada. As soon as I could read on my own, I devoured books. I mean literally devoured: as I read, I would tear off the corners of the pages and eat them.
Thus I have always lived partly in the real world and partly in a world of fiction. Too much so, my parents and various teachers said; too much daydreaming and not enough paying attention to what was around me. But without that portal into an imaginary world, I don’t think I would have become a writer.
When I was twelve, I discovered a book that changed my life: Emily of New Moon, by L.M. Montgomery. It, and its two sequels, are about a girl who yearns to be, and then becomes, a successful writer – in Canada! As soon as I finished the book I went to the drugstore, bought a blank notebook, and began keeping a journal.
Being so bookish led naturally to my getting degrees in, first English at the University of Alberta, and then Librarianship at UBC. My children’s literature prof, Sheila Egoff, was a huge influence, with her belief that only the best of writing was good enough for the young. As a children’s librarian in St. Catharines, North York, and Burnaby, I loved connecting children to books and stories. I still yearned to write, however, and now I knew I wanted to write for children. But it wasn’t until I was thirty-five that I finally worked up the courage to do it seriously.
That was when I left my library job in North York to get my M.A. in Children’s Literature at Simmons College in Boston. Two of my courses there were “Writing for Children.” My teachers, Nancy Bond and Jane Langton, were so encouraging, and I was surrounded by so many people who were creating children’s books, that I moved back to Vancouver, got a part-time job in Burnaby Public Library, and began my first novel.
Now, as well as inhabiting imaginary realms as a reader, I was creating those worlds myself. From the very first words of my first novel, The Daring Game, I felt an enormous relief that I was finally doing what I was meant to.
I was so lucky to start writing children’s books in the late 70s, just when they were finally taking off in Canada. My first novel was rejected by two publishers; then something magical happened. I had told Phyllis Simon, the owner of Vancouver Kidsbooks, about my book. The next morning a rep from Penguin Books Canada walked into her store and asked her if she knew anyone who was writing for children. She told him about my book, said it was wonderful – she hadn’t read it! – and he actually phoned me up and asked me to send it to Penguin. They accepted it, and after that the trajectory of my writing career was remarkably smooth and exhilarating. I became part of a growing tribe of children’s book creators and, along with the late Sonia Craddock, started the group CWILL BC: Children’s Writers and Illustrators of BC. I was invited all over the country, and even outside it, to speak at libraries, schools and conferences about my books.
I don’t have to tell this crowd how crucial reading is for the young; how books can, more than any technology, enlarge a child’s world. Fiction, especially, enables a reader to experience a huge diversity of other people, cultures, places and times; and can leave a child with wonder, consolation, courage and hope. In my forty-year career, it has been a privilege to write for such a supremely important audience.
Thank you again for this very great honour.
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