Hands up if one of your best memories as a kid was snuggling up to mom or dad for the nightly story-reading session? Do you recall the tension you felt when the Wicked Witch of the West trapped Dorothy? Did you mentally skip down the Yellow Brick Road with the Kansas miss? Did you feel her disappointment when the Wizard of Oz turned out to be a puny fellow with a big voice?
Can you still hear Dad doing his best imitation of Long John Silver? Do you get goose bumps when someone starts chanting, ‘Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum’? And is Laura Ingalls Wilder still your favourite heroine of all time?
If you can answer yes to any of those questions, chances are good that, like me, you’re a story addict. And according to the nobs who make it their duty to chart such facts, story telling is one of the surest ways in the world to get a message across. As adults we hunger to hear about the world around us in a way we can emotionally respond to, and perhaps even more importantly, we want to have experiences that real life would deny us.
And I believe that, in a nutshell, explains the year-after-year popularity of the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts. Every August for four magical days we get to sit in the majesty of the Rockwood Pavilion and be transported somewhere else by a Canadian storyteller.
Whether we live for the past being brought to life through the expert use of fiction such as author Roberta Rich serves up in her wonderful series about the midwife of Venice or experience vicariously the tribulations of the lonely end of the hockey rink by comedic genius Grant Lawrence, we still just love a good story.
In a day and age where we’re over-connected by an electronic yoke to the here and now, it’s somehow very reassuring to be able to set aside a few special hours and do nothing but listen and think, to let our imaginations run wild and go where the author leads us.
In past years I’ve been transported to Vietnam by Camilla Gibb; now I can’t get enough of her wonderful stories. And when in the next book I read she took me to London and Ethiopia, I knew the first enchantment I felt was no accident.
From the pen of Charles Foran I learned of the great Mordecai Richler, chapter and verse. In fact I was so fascinated, I bought that doorstopper of a book. And while Richler’s own forays to the Sunshine Coast don’t factor in the book, it’s still a darn good story. And Foran is back this year. I’m looking forward to hearing him — and seeing him — he’s pretty easy on the eyes!
One of the highlights for me this year will be local filmmaker Dianne Whelan. Dianne was, for a very short time, a reporter at our paper back in the paper’s days. Her photography continues to tell the most magnificent stories.
If you’d like to rekindle your love for a good story, I invite you to join me in the heart of Sechelt between August 14 and 17. Come find a grown-up Yellow Brick Road.
