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CANSCAIP Members Ann WalshAuthor
411 Winger Road
Born: Jasper, Alabama BiographyI was born in Jasper, Alabama, U.S.A. and spent my first years there with my mother and grandparents, but I am a Canadian Citizen. My father was in South Africa and, as it was wartime, women and children were not allowed to travel overseas. When I was almost four we moved to South Africa and I met my father for the first time. I went to school in South Africa, Kansas, England, Holland, Saskatchewan, and finally ended up in Vancouver, B.C. in l953 where I spent the rest of my growing-up years. After I finished university we came to Williams Lake for a "few years" to teach. Those "few" years stretched into many more as my husband and I settled here, bought a house and raised two children to adulthood; one is now a nurse, the other a teacher. We live on eighteen acres a short distance from the town of Williams Lake, and also have a tiny summer cabin on a nearby lake. There is no power, road or phone at our cabin so it is lit by oil lamps, heated by a w! ood stove. Visitors stand on the far shore and shout until we hear them and boat over to pick them up. I wrote my first book, Your Time, My Time, after a ten day short writing course in Wells, B.C. with Robin Skelton. It took ten months, and I wrote it on the kitchen table on a manual typewriter, each page typed at least three times, 230 pages in the completed manuscript. I was very surprised when I actually finished it and more than surprised when, after a year, it finally sold to a publisher. When I write I do a lot of pre-planning and research (many of my books are set in B.C.'s past) and I plan the plot of the story thoroughly before I begin to write. I am beginning to use a computer; I used an electric typewriter until recently. I believe that rewriting is the most important part of writing: revising, checking grammar and spelling, deciding if each word is exactly the right choice or if the characters and plot are believable. That is also the hardest part of writing, at least to me. I don't know where I get my ideas from, except that they often come from historical events and places. Some locations, such as Barkerville, seem to cry out to be written about. I also write short stories for adult magazines, poetry, the occasional article for the newspaper, and am working on a mystery novel, also for adults. I enjoy speaking to kids, and do a lot of travelling and talking in schools about my books and B.C.'s history. My short stories and articles for adults have appeared in Canadian Living, been heard on CBC and been printed in journals and magazines around the world. Published WorksBooks
Horse Power, Orca Currents, 2007 EditorDark Times, Ronsdale Press, Fall 2005,Beginnings, Stories of Canada's Past, Ronsdale Press, 2001 Winds Through Time, An Anthology of Canadian YA Historical Fiction, Beach Holme, l998 Magazines, NewspapersPrairie Fire, Special YA Issue, Fall 1998; short fiction The Darius BirdAwardsAll my novels have been Canadian Children's Centre's Our Choice selections. Other MembershipsThe Writers' Union of Canada, The Federation of B.C. Writers, Children's Literature Roundtable (Vancouver), CWILL B.C. (Children's Writers and Illustrators of British Columbia), The Canadian Children's Book Centre, founding member of The Williams Lake Writers' Group. Available ForLiterary festivals, school presentations, workshops for all ages, readings. |
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