
WNDB 2019 Mentorships Announced

Writer and author of books for young readers Robin Stevenson asked if I’d like to moderate a panel she’s putting together. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make that date, but the panel is in a cause that’s worth writing about and somehow it seems right to publish this post on September 11.
I asked Robin to tell me more about her forthcoming event. Here is what she wrote:
Like many Canadians, I got involved in refugee sponsorship back in 2015, when the refugee crisis was headline news. Since that time, media interest has waned, but the number of refugees worldwide has continued to grow. Canadians have a unique opportunity to help: by joining with others to form sponsorship groups, we can help more refugees resettle in our communities. I’ve been a part of two groups sponsoring wonderful families who are now living here in Victoria, and I have started a third group—this one to sponsor an 18 year old girl who fled persecution in her country two years ago, and has been on her own as a refugee since. She is highly vulnerable in her current situation– we hope her case will be processed quickly so she can start a new phase of her life here in Victoria.
Part of the commitment of a sponsorship group is financial: the group commits to supporting the refugee for their first year in Canada. So we are fundraising. And because I am a writer who loves working with other writers, I am working with author and sponsorship group member Kari Jones to organize an event that combines our interest in refugee justice with our love for all things literary. It is called Pathways to Publication: Finding a Home for Your Children’s Book or Teen Novel, and it will take place Saturday October 27, in Esquimalt.
We will have two panels: one of successful authors— Susan Juby, Mahtab Narsimhan, Ria Voros and Laurie Elmquist–and one of professional editors of picture books, middle grade and young adult novels. There will be opportunities to ask questions and chat with the panelists. And there will be door prizes! You could even win the chance to get a chapter of your own manuscript critiqued by a published author.
Tickets are available on EventBrite. (link: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/pathways-to-publication-tickets-49233930010) I hope to see you there! And if you can’t come, but want to support this young refugee, please consider donating through our fundraising page. (link: https://chimp.net/groups/victoria-young-refugee-sponsorship-group) Every dollar gets us closer to our goal. Thanks so much!
And thank you, Robin, for those important thematic links of community and home–for writers, for the work they care about, and for these young people who have endured horrific circumstances and whose future now depends on the help and goodwill of strangers.
Photo © Nidhi Raina
[Arushi] More often than not, these artistic choices emerge when I realize the story I want to tell, in a pretty organic, or intuitive way. Some of this choice traces back to my growing up in South Africa, living with the narrative instability of a place that had just come out of apartheid and the diverse, often conflicting perspectives that different racial groups, genders, had in South Africa in the late 1990s. I grew up in a time when South Africa, and its people were trying to make sense of what, indeed Mandela’s “Rainbow Nation” would be, and what to make of this country’s traumatic past.And so no story I could tell of South Africa, could have one “true” narrator. At every point Jack, Zanele, Thabo and Meena’s perspectives interact, conflict, and grow from eachother. The plot, if you look closely, is solely based on the characters interactions from eachother, and the tensions between their different perspectives.
[Arushi] I learned about the Soweto Uprising in Grade 10 History class in Johannesburg. At that time, that was maybe what I needed, understanding the facts, the first hand accounts, trying to put the timeline together, connect it with our school visits into Soweto, the Apartheid Museum. At the same time, however, non-fiction can have the affect of distancing us from the story. We are concerned about facts and objectivity – but sometimes these aspects cannot be experienced or felt. We are not following the path of a living, breathing person, in the way we typically access non-fiction. There are some exceptions, of course. Fiction, though, is very freeing. I am not trying to stick to the facts, only, to be objective. Instead, I’m trying to hit on a far more difficult thing – the emotional truth of the story, of the different stories and points of view that are in this story. How can I come to this emotional truth, with the tools I have in my hands?
[Arushi] Thank you so much, as a writer yourself, for showcasing and supporting other writers. Its a small but mighty world, and I so appreciate your time, thoughtfulness and perspective.
[Arushi] For me, one of the most magical things that happened when I got published, was getting to meet other writers, and experiencing the kindness and generosity of writers, particularly children’s writers. I cannot even count the number of authors who have shared so much of their time, and supported me through my debut year. Some shout outs would include: RJ Anderson, Robin Stevenson, Adwoa Badoe, Rachel Hartman.What I realized, really early on, is that writers are the best support for writers. And there’s a business rationale for this too: we live in a world where the literary marketplace is shrinking and consolidating. There are now a smaller percentage of diehard readers who read a lot. There are fewer publishing houses. You realize very early (particularly if you’re with a small publishing house) that other writers are going to be your biggest supports, your encouragement, the ones that shout out your work. In this way, they draw their readers to your work. As a collective of writers, we’re trying to get everyone to buy and read more books, not to compete for a reader’s specific attention. The advice I give to writers who haven’t published yet is to build that support system of writing friends early on.