If there is one lesson a writer should know – especially those in the non-fiction variety – it is that perseverance is an essential quality needed to succeed.
It is something that Stephen Legault knows first hand, as do the selection of local non-fiction writers collected together to create the anthology of essays and stories Imagine This Valley released this month by Rocky Mountain Books.
“What you are holding in your hands is the definition of perseverance,” Legault said with a laugh as he started talking about the book, which took more than 20 years to put together.
“This is something people who want to be writers need to remember – books don’t happen overnight. This one tops out at 20 years.”
Imagine This Valley began as an idea when Legault was living and working in Lake Louise in 1996 – at the time of the Bow Valley Study and the Special Places 2000 process. He said his mind turned to what it was he wanted the Bow Valley to be in 20 years, sparking the start of the essay collection with writers like Ben Gadd and Kevin Van Tighem.
Years later, Legault still had the essays, they were still relevant and, when he met with Rocky Mountain Books publisher Don Gorman, they made a plan for publishing four books that included Imagine This Valley, as well as his recently released Earth and Sky photograph collection.
Legault said he approached the writers he already had essays from (saved, he noted, by his wife who transferred them from a floppy disk to a flash drive) and asked them to update their pieces. Then, he said, he approached new writers to expand the scope of the book to encompass mountain culture more broadly.
Telling stories about place can take a variety of forms and the authors collected by Legault manage to approach what it means to be here from a variety of perspectives.
“I was surprised by the breadth of writing talent,” Legault said. “And it shouldn’t have been a surprise. People are not accustomed to writing in the essay format, but they were generally able to do amazing things with it.”
Maria Gregorish, for example, writes about what it is like to come to the Bow Valley as a foreigner not speaking any English; Jocey Asnong, a children’s illustrator, wrote an essay called the Colour of January that revealed how an artist interprets place through colour. Former Rocky Mountain Outlook reporter Rob Alexander wrote about leaving the Bow Valley after his sister’s Lesley’s death and how his sense of place was intricately connected to her.
While some writers wrote their essays specifically for the book, others were chosen out of the works of past writers of the valley, like Jon Whyte.
Two essays were selected from students at Banff Community High School – which saw it as an English class assignment. Out of 60 written, Joleen Brewster Niehaus and Miki Kawano were selected for their written perspectives on the valley.
Selecting young writers for the book collection fits in with what it is Legault hopes to do with the profits from the book’s sale. Proceeds are to go toward a scholarship fund for young aspiring local writers, beginning with a $500 grant in 2016.
Regardless of when they were writing, however, the subject matter, the Bow Valley, said Legault, remains the heart of an extraordinary ecosystem and “there is really no other place like it.”
The selection of writers for Imagine This Valley is so impressive, at least one name is bound to impress readers. That includes Globe and Mail journalist Ian Brown, the Calgary Herald’s Colette Derworiz, the Outlook’s founding editor Carol Picard, former provincial court judge and author John Reilly, Robert William Sandford, Jamey Glasnovic, Katherine Govier and Lynn Martel to name but a few.
A celebration of the book’s release is being held at artsPlace on Nov. 24 at 7 p.m., featuring readings by many of the local writers featured.
Imagine This Valley is also available at Café Books in paperback for $20.
