I remember it well: the last weekend in September was the Grand Final - where I experienced my first Australian Rules Football championship match, and all the passions that went with it when St. Kilda tied with Collingwood in the last few seconds of the game. Collingwood went on to demolish St. Kilda team the following weekend, much to the dismay of many of my Tasmanian friends. And I just heard this year's result: Collingwood lost to Geelong - much to the delight of those whose credo is "anyone but Collingwood!"
On the Festival's opening night, I was asked to introduce one of my favourite authors, Newfoundland's Wayne Johnston, who was one of the writers whose work I explored for my master's thesis: "'The Circumscribed Geography of Home': Island Identity in the Fiction of Wayne Johnston and Alistair MacLeod." Wayne was on tour with his latest book, A World Elsewhere. I read it and it's hilarious... I recommend it highly. But don't just take my word for it: here's what The Globe and Mail has to say. Unfortunately, Wayne was in a bit of pain for his reading, having broken his toe in St. John's the day before. But despite this, he had the hundred or so audience members in stitches with his droll humour, consummate storytelling, and spot-on imitations of John Crosbie, former Canadian fisheries minister from St. John's. I'm looking forward to interviewing Wayne for my PhD research later in November.
 |
| Wayne Johnston |
 |
| Jane Ledwell |
Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Literary Arts on Prince Edward Island 2011
If you grew up with your dad’s words ringing in your ears, “Never do anything practical when you can do something creative,” how would you have turned out?
Writer, editor, reader, music and art and pop culture aficionado, fiercely passionate Islander and supporter of what’s fair and just in the world, and, most importantly, friend… Jane Ledwell is all this and more.
Jane Ledwell tells me of her earliest memories of me: out-to-here pregnant with my first child, Heather, in 1985 – probably at some writing event, maybe at the Faculty Lounge at UPEI, maybe at the first ever Island Literary Awards, where she’d accompanied her dad, writer and UPEI professor Frank Ledwell. She was just a teenager and probably embarrassed because Jane’s mom was pregnant, too, with her youngest brother, Christian.
A few years later I remember her dad proudly showing me something she wrote – a gorgeous poem about making bread. She may have written it while she was away doing her BA in English at Mount Allison University or her master’s at Waikato University in New Zealand – where she was homesick as anything – but it evoked the feeling of family that has been her touchstone throughout her life.
Jane is the oldest child of six growing up with mom Carolyn and dad Frank on the Loyalist Road, along with Patrick, Thomas, Emily, Danny, and Christian. She talks about being a geek in school, in love with the trumpet section at Bluefield High School and listening to The Police while carrying Sting’s love-child.
I got to know her when she came to work as Conference co-ordinator at the Institute of Island Studies, working on “Message in a Bottle: The Literature of Small Islands.” She went on to succeed Harry Baglole as Institute Director before becoming a researcher and policy analyst at the PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women, where she still works. She and I co-edited, with Frank, the conference proceedings, called Message in a Bottle, published in 2000.
I REALLY got to know her when we were band mates in KissinGord, a five-woman music ensemble specializing in Canadian-American-lesbian-feminist-indie folksongs, where she played guitar and sang lead and fantastic harmonies with Sasha Mullally, Janice Ployer, Shannon Hartigan, and me – all of us having worked at the Institute at one time or another. Jane always made sure band practice included wine and baked goods. Jane was the first of us to write her own songs, including “Five Days of Weeping” and “Island,” which Tasmanian Pete Hay says is one of the finest songs ever written about Prince Edward Island; he quotes it often: “Here I stand, here I stay. Among my family and my mistakes. And the people and land have long memories. And forgiveness is slow, but it’s on its way.” We also sang side-by-side in the Holy Redeemer Choir alto section for many years.
Jane was my right-hand person at The Acorn Press from pretty much the beginning in the mid-1990s up until I sold it last summer to Terrilee Bulger. Along with her dad, she helped with manuscript selection; she gave great feedback on grant applications, and edited several Acorn books – rarely for money, but just to get the experience.
Here’s what a few of those authors had to say…
FROM DIANNE HICKS MORROW, author of Long Reach Home, Kindred Spirits, and What Really Happened Is This: Jane inherited her father's diplomacy -- the nicest way of making you see the wisdom of her words. She has profound insight into what makes a poem tick, or bomb! I've never seen anyone else able to hold the lines of a poem in her head, with no printed copy to look at, only hearing workshop participants read aloud, just once. She did this repeatedly in her three-hour workshop on "where to turn the line" in poetry! Now that's one amazing brain!
FROM BETH JANZEN, author of The Enchanted House:
Jane was respectful, insightful, intelligent, and wise. I think she spoiled me by being so good! She is a real gift to the Island’s writing community.
FROM MARGIE CARMICHAEL, author of And Her Name Is: Stories from the Quilt: Jane’s poet's eye can spot the essence of the piece, but she also has an acute sense of hearing what is not being said in a writer's work, and is gifted in extracting what is missing. She pulled out the best out of me, teaching me so much.
FROM CATHERINE EDWARD: author of The Brow of Dawn: Jane reads the middle and all around the edges. She sees what one meant to say but didn’t; what one did say but could do better. How pleased one is to fix these things. How excited and relieved and honoured. How does she do that? I want to know what her mother Carolyn fed all those little Ledwells for breakfast... it’s seems to be a family thing, this portioning of genius.
FROM KATHLEEN HAMILTON, author of Sex After Baby: Why There Is None: Having Jane Ledwell as your editor is like putting on a tailored suit. She makes you look smarter than you are.
Jane always amazes me with the power of her pen. She writes quickly and elegantly, churning out documents such as the proposal for a Master of Arts in Island Studies (which has changed my life immeasurably); briefs to Standing Committees; letters to the editor – always demonstrating her strong appreciation for the value of using the written word to interpret Prince Edward Island to Islanders. Her creative writing has brought her prizes in the PEI Literary Awards, and BOTH poetry and short story categories in 2001 in the Atlantic Writing Competition. She has been published in anthologies and broadcast on CBC Radio, and is author of Last Tomato, published in 2005 by Acorn Press, which was a finalist for the Prince Edward Island Book Award.
Jane was a researcher, publication co-ordinator, and writer of the literary section for First Hand: Arts, Crafts, and Culture Created byPEI Women of the 20th Century, a public history project featuring Island women's creative works, and created by the PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women and PEI Interministerial Women's Secretariat to celebrate women's history at the turn of the millennium. I still find myself referring to it in my own work.
Jane continues to write, edit and publish: indeed, she just finished an essay about Elaine Harrison, soon to be released in an exhibition catalogue co-published by Confederation Centre of the Arts and Acorn Press. And she has agreed to edit my poetry book. I mean, after all the fantastic feedback I got about her editing prowess from my authors, how could I not go to her?
She is also doing artistic collaborations with her husband, artist Stephen McInnis. You may have seen them with their most recent in Rochford Square in August: they were the creators of “The Rumour Mill,” a gossip-powered human machine for generating poetry out of tourism. It was one of the hits of “Art in the Open," part of This Town is Small.
But I leave mentioning her perhaps most important job til last: being mom to Anna, aged 5, and Sam, aged 2. One of the best revenges a mother can have on her child is for that child to grow up and have a child just like she was. Well, Carolyn can correct me if I’m wrong, but I hear Anna is just like Jane was. For example, I understand that she insisted from the age of two that her parents read her the REAL Anne of Green Gables, and NOT the baby version. I just wonder if Sam will grow up refusing to play board games like his Uncle Patrick…
I’ll leave you with some of her words echoing in your ears: from her poem, “Why I stay”: “because I have already crushed too much stone to red dust / under my feet and I wear all this sand on my tongue.”
It seems only fitting that we should honour Jane today; coming full circle celebrating the accomplishments of the daughter of Frank Ledwell, the first recipient in 1985 of the Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Literary Arts on Prince Edward Island. He’d be proud of Jane, just like her mom Carolyn and family members and all her authors and friends - including me! - are today.
I present to you Jane Ledwell, the 2011 recipient of the Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Literary Arts on Prince Edward Island.
No comments:
Post a Comment