Full Circles

A literary festival in the place of my origins: on meaning, decades-long fantasies, and showing up as the person you are now

I grew up mostly in what we called “the bush,” surrounded by woods on a dead-end dirt road with three other houses on it, in a remote region of Ontario that felt utterly cut off from anywhere where anything was happening. Certainly cut off from anywhere anyone was a writer, which is what I was trying to figure out how to be, yearning for community and acknowledgment and guidance.

I left long ago in search of my place and my people and myself. But this rugged northern landscape has never stopped tugging on my imagination and my psyche (my next novel is set there), in that love-hate effect of the place we are from.

So at the top of my dream list of publication experiences when The Mother Act came out this year was to get myself invited to Wordstock Sudbury, the northern literary festival that didn’t exist when I was growing up.

It happened. The festival was at the beginning of November, and it was a weekend of beautiful full circles for me. Some anxiety ahead of time, as I prepared to don the Author persona but this time to do it in a place full of the ghosts of past lives. A groundless anxiety, of course, because the weekend was meaningful and fun and great in every way: professional connections and networking, family and friend connections, reader connections, solitude and recharging time after an intense year (a solo road trip and my own hotel room!) And maybe most of all, the significance of using my voice and presence on a professional stage in the place where I struggled to come into my own. 

Also, my book sold out halfway through the weekend!

On a panel about the inner lives and emotional complexities of our (mostly) women characters. Featuring the groundbreaking insight from me that “Men are people too.” It’s true! With moderator and writer Liisa Kovula and writers Kim Fahner (The Donoghue Girl) and Louse Ells (Lies I Told My Sister).

In a weekend packed with joy, three full circle highlights were particularly joyful:

1) I was interviewed by CTV News about The Mother Act.

The last (and only other) time I was interviewed by CTV News, I was a sanctimonious 19-year-old promoting a Christian homeschool conference, refusing to wear makeup under the studio lights because makeup was worldly, looking washed-out and ill as a result. I handled it a bit better this time:

With Tony Ryma on CTV News Northern Ontario, for their Northern Book Club segment. Click the photo to watch.

2) My childhood best friend surprised me in the signing line after my event.

We’ve seen each other only sporadically in adulthood but have known each other nearly 40 years, since my first day at Markstay Public School when I arrived mid-year and my new teacher introduced us with “You two. You’re both smart. You should be friends.” And we were.

I reminded her that we were library helpers who got to take turns working in the library at recess, and the one in the library would prop an open book in the window for the unfortunate one forced to play outside, turning the pages at intervals so the outside person could read. I remember standing in the snow in February reading through the window. That’s the kind of nerds we were.

With Andrea Tarini, fellow 10-year-old nerd.

3. And finally, a moment I dreamt of for decades: my high school English teacher came to my event, and I saw him for the first time in 31 years.

There’s a bit of a school theme going on here, so a moment of explanation: I went to “regular” school until grade 5, I homeschooled from grade 6 to 9, attended a single year of high school, then returned home.

When Mr. Thoms knew me in 1992-93 for that one year of high school, I was a religiously fervent fifteen year old who, despite the weight of a whole lot of dogma, nevertheless knew that she was a writer. Underneath all the baggage, he recognized that in me too. He took me seriously as a writer, he encouraged me to think about what I read instead of giving sanctioned answers, and he opened a door to a more expanded life and line of inquiry than the one I was locked in.

For decades I planned to send him a copy of my first book and a letter letting him know the impact he had on me. In the lead-up to publication, I panicked that he might have died in the years I’d waited to become a “success” before telling him what he’d meant to me. (Lesson: just tell people what they’ve meant to you, now.) The first thing I did after I returned from my book tour in the spring was send him a copy of The Mother Act, along with that letter.

Here’s some of what I wrote to him:

I remember almost everything we read and discussed in your class and everything I wrote for you. I remember your style of teaching, your handwriting, things you said; I’m pretty sure I could still quote from memory some of your comments on my essays. I can’t remember a single classmate. In my memory, it was only me sitting at your feet, absorbing a world of literature and writing and possibility.

Looking back now, I understand that you were the first person in my sheltered life who invited me into an intellectual conversation, who modelled for me a life of the mind, the importance of inquiry, a reverence for literature. I was hungry for it—it called to something that was essential to my nature—even while I was suspicious of it, because it didn’t entirely jive with the worldview I was embracing at that time…

But I ultimately found my way. Some sparks of that journey are in this novel. So is Shakespeare and theatre and the urgency of creative pursuit, seeds that were planted or nurtured in your classroom.

I want you to have this book because, whether you knew it or not, you were essential to my creative and intellectual becoming.

I came off the stage after my Wordstock Sudbury panel event, was talking with audience members and making my way to the signing table, when my mother appeared at my side to say, “There’s someone here to see you.”

With Mr. Thoms, my grade 10 English teacher, 31 years later.

I realized later that what I’ve been dreaming of for decades, what I wanted in sending Mr. Thoms the book and writing him the letter, was to have a conversation as the woman I am now with the man he was then. For those two people to have a meeting of the minds that wasn’t possible back then because that girl was still so fully immersed in dogma.

But the first thing I said when we met again after 31 years was “Are you who I think you are?” Because I did not recognize the man my mother led me to. Nothing in how he looked, in his mannerisms or voice or bearing. Because…it’s been 31 years!

I had, it turned out, been expecting him to be frozen in time, waiting for me to become myself so we could have this conversation. I’d expected him to be the same vital, mentally agile man at the front of the classroom, offering me ideas I dared to let myself entertain.

He has not, it turns out, been frozen in time for 31 years.

So seeing him was not the fantasy I’d carried in my mind, but I also learned that I no longer needed that experience. In fact, I don’t think this meeting was really about me at all. I am now the mentor to other writers and aspiring writers that Mr. Thoms was to me, and I do not require validation, do not need to prove anything on behalf of teenage Heidi. But it was truly meaningful for him, being acknowledged and learning that his work had made a difference. We talked. He remembered me. He came! He said how incredible it was to receive my book and my letter and how moving to see me now. And that is far more than enough.

A few more lit fest scenes:

1: Very inspiring conversation about Mohawk writer Alicia Elliot’s excellent novel And Then She Fell, with Shana Calixte Pitawanakwat. 2: Me fangirling over Alicia Elliott, telling her we shared an editor at Dutton, comparing experiences (all good!). 3: Publishing panel with John Degan, Alicia Elliott, Hollay Ghadery, Randall Perry. 4-6: Saturday night hotel bar hang: with writer Kate Caley, with my sister Rebekah, with writer Rod Carley. 7: Sunday morning brunch & poetry--truly inspiring--with Kim Fahner, Fareh Malik, Hollay Ghadery, and Emily Austin. 8: YA panel with Johnathan Pinto, Danielle Daniel, Kern Carter, Emily De Angelis. 9: Closing session with Randall Perry and Rod Carley.

And now I’m back to writing in my yoga pants and coaching through my computer screen, in the place where I live now. Which honestly is pretty damn great too.

If you’ve noticed that I haven’t been sending newsletters, it’s because I haven’t been sending newsletters. Thanks for missing me! (If you didn’t notice, that’s fine too.) This fall has been unsustainably jam-packed, but I’m trying not to let this letter suffer for it anymore.

Hope you are finding your glimmers of wellbeing and nourishment through everything this season is bringing.

Warmly,

Heidi

P.S. I don’t love recommending book purchases on Amazon, especially right now because the holidays are crucial for independent bookstores. Please support independent bookstores when you can! But…if full price is out of reach for you, I wanted to let you know that Amazon US currently has the hardcover of The Mother Act on sale for 17.99, which is a great discount. The book makes a beautiful gift—or perhaps, if you haven’t read The Mother Act yourself, you’d like to treat yourself and escape your dysfunctional family this holiday season by diving into a fictitious one!