Before the sun lifts its head or after it has gone to bed, somewhere in this town of just under 200,000, an odd assortment of residents are rubbing their eyes and slumping down before a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, lifting the cover off the old Underwood, or more likely these days, watching their computer screen leap into life.
Who are they, these people for whom that precious time before the start of the day or nearing its end represents freedom to do what they must?
‘They’ are writers and Oakville is or has been home to more than four dozen published wordsmiths –– give or take –– and that isn’t counting what must surely be an even greater number of hopeful scribblers chewing the ends of their pencils or staring at a blank screen day after day after day.
Acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Laurence (never an Oakville resident) knew about this compulsion to write.
“When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.”
So who are these published authors who frequent our stores and walk our streets while their minds are engaged somewhere else entirely?
It is not possible to focus on every member of this exclusive club so I have chosen six to provide a glimpse into the breadth and depth of the talent here in town. Some hit the jackpot with their first try, reaching bestseller lists and winning literary prizes. Others are sleepers, only gradually gaining recognition through word of mouth. Some are published by storied publishing houses and others undertake the task of ‘birthing a book’ themselves.
The list includes not only those writing now, but one at least laid down her pen before many of us were born.
But, a good read is a good read. So let us get started.
Shelly Sanders
Sanders is a journalist who has written for many of Canada’s best-known newspapers and periodicals. But it was when she stumbled upon her Russian Jewish grandmother’s story about escaping a pogrom, fleeing to Shanghai and ending up in Canada that she knew what she must do.
“There was a purpose in me I didn’t know about –– a driving force.”
The result is a trilogy of historical novels, Rachel’s Secret, Rachel’s Promise and Rachel’s Hope, published by Second Story Press of Toronto and aimed at the teen/adult market.
Shelly is now working on another historical novel set in Riga the capital of Latvia and Chicago, Illinois.
David Posen
If you are worrying, feeling anxious, or the rigours of COVID 19 mask wearing and social distancing are getting to you, help can be found in the bookshelves of any self-respecting bookstore or website. This is where you will find the works of that thoughtful Oakville family doctor, David Posen. Doctor Posen didn’t intend to pursue the path he followed, but found he had built up such expertise in stress management that eventually he gave up general practice and concentrated on helping his patients with their worries and anxieties. When a friend suggested he should write a book he discovered he loved the act of writing. That first attempt, Always Change a Losing Game is now in its fifth edition. Since the publication of that first book 26 years ago, Doctor Posen has produced another four teaching us how to cope at work and at home with what troubles us.
His most recent book is titled, Authenticity : A guide to living in harmony with your true self is published by Anansi Press of Toronto.
Joyce Wayne
Wayne was a ‘red diaper baby’, meaning she was the child of card-carrying members of the Canadian Communist Party, until her father lost his faith in the Bolsheviks. This gave Ms Wayne a different slant on childhood during the paranoid 1950s. The atmosphere at that time of spies and traitors never left her, and when she began to think about a second book -– her first, The Cook’s Temptation is set in Victorian England. –– the genesis of the plot came easily; a Canadian woman spy as the central figure in Last Night of the World. The novel is set in Ottawa during the Cold War where a Soviet run espionage ring is trying to steal atomic secrets until they are betrayed by one of their own.
“I had to tell that story,” she recalls.
Both books are published by Mosaic Press here in Oakville.
Ms Wayne is also an award-winning journalist, former editor of Quill and Quire and at one time headed the journalism program at Sheridan College.
Karma Brown
Brown lives in Oakville with her husband, daughter and a labradoodle named Fred. She is also a bestselling author of five novels, including her latest, Recipe for a Perfect Wife, published by Random House Canada. It is about a woman finding inspiration in notes hidden in a cookbook left by the previous owner, a housewife in the 1950s. These notes provide revealing glimpses into how patriarchy ruled women’s live in the 1950s. And could it be that it continues to do so? This most recent of Ms Brown’s novels has garnered favourable reviews in The New York Times’ book review section, Quill and Quire and Kirkus Reviews. As well as a successful career as an author Ms Brown is a National Magazine Award winning journalist with bylines in Redbook, Today’s Parent, Best Health, Canadian Living and Chatelaine.
Josie Di Sciasco-Andrews
Sciasco-Andrews has written poetry since she was a teenager. In an interview with Poetry in Voice, she credits The Byrds with their hit, “For Everything there is a Season’ for her becoming a poet. Now she has seven collections of poetry to her name of which her latest is Sunrise Over Lake Ontario, published by Expresso Bar Publishing. Two of her poems were shortlisted for Descant's Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Prize and The Malahat Review's Open Seasons and another won first prize in Big Pond Rumours Journal Contest. Josie is also the author of two non-fiction books: How The Italians Created Canada and In the Name of Hockey. She is well known around town as the host and coordinator of The Oakville Literary Cafe Series.
Mazo De La Roche
Maro De La Roche (1879-1961) rented Sovereign House for five years during the early part of the 20th century. Largely forgotten nowadays and her once acclaimed books too often derided, this neglected author put Southern Ontario firmly on Canada’s literary map. Her family saga The Whiteoaks conjures up Canada during the 19th and early 20th century through generations of a large quarrelsome family headed by fearsome matriarch Adeline. Indeed, in 1927 her first book Jalna (seventh chronologically) won the coveted Atlantic Prize Novel award. The 16 books of the series, published by Little Brown, would go on to sell more than eleven million copies and became a CBC television series.
So there we have what might be called our hors d’oeuvre to Oakville’s many writers –– don’t forget Irving Layton, the internationally recognized poet who lived here for a year in the 1980s, or novelists Laurence Hill and Lynwood Barclay who both lived here more recently.
The following list is not exclusive but among us are Natalie Jenner, Michael Mirolla, Hannah Mary McKinnon, Sean Livingston, Sylvia Maria Valevicious, Tamara De Dominicis, Colin Chappell, Tom Herstad, Alexandra Ginty, Awadh Jaggernath, Angela Rush, Ray Verdon, Ziyad Ahmed Muhafazah, Plum Johnson, Angelo Sgabellone, Melodie Campbell, Eileen Beltzner, Molly Fraser, C.K. Kelly Martin, Janet Turpin Myers, Ian Stout, David Tucker, Sheeza Iqbal, Catherine You, Maggie Petru, Shiela Jane, Lynn McPherson, Sharma Husain. Paul Manchin, Eileen Beltzner, Catherine Black, illustrator Suzanne Dei Rizzo –– and not forgetting yours truly.
With many, many thanks to the help received from Oakville Public Library and that fount of local booklore Ian Elliot of The Different Drummer in Burlington.