Come the end of December you’ll hear all kinds of people talking about “out with the old and in with the new.”
That mantra doesn’t displease Gail Sidonie Sobat. The Edmonton author is hanging up her hat as a teacher-librarian at an Edmonton school while sharpening her pencils and brushing up on her Strunk and White’s Elements of Style in readiness for her new position in Strathcona County, Fort Saskatchewan and here, in St. Albert.
Sobat is the third person to sign up for duty as the Regional Writer in Residence, an office that she was practically a shoe-in for.
“I hope so,” the former teacher at Paul Kane, Bellerose and W.D. Cuts said with a somewhat subdued air.
Indeed, it was nearly de facto that this annual assignment was hers for the taking. It’s not just because she had applied in previous years, only to see the position being offered to other author friends of hers, first Natasha Deen and then Margaret MacPherson, the latter just finishing up her busy but successful tenure last week.
She was, by many accounts, born for the job. It’s in her blood, the author of 11 titles said, recalling how books have always been a significant part of her life. She started reading at an early age, even falling love with rhyme because her mom got her a subscription to the Dr. Seuss book club.
Her life in literature all began when her family lived among the Blackfoot people on the Siksika Nation Reserve. Being a white kid among the First Nations was the seminal experience of her life, she explained, because it taught her how valuable first hand knowledge is to informing one’s thoughts.
It also was where her biblioholism really took hold. The residents had to apply to the Indian Affairs office to leave, she remembered, but she could “trot across the train tracks” to visit the library in the neighbouring town. It was a beautiful library, to her recollection.
“My mom was ardent about us reading. Our house was filled with books. Even though she only had a Grade 11 education – I think because she was the daughter of immigrants – she saw how important that was. Books were a reward. If I went to the dentist and I was good, we got books both purchased and taken out of the library. It was beautiful.”
While reading took an early hold on her imagination at the library and at home, another perhaps even more important formative experience occurred in St. Paul. That’s where she wrote her first story, prompting an unanticipated phone call from her teacher that night. Her parents initially suspected she was in trouble. What else could warrant such a direct communication from an elementary educator?
“ ‘Do you know your daughter is a writer?’ ” Sobat said, recalling the substance of that momentous phone call, before continuing. “Those words from a teacher, someone you admire ... they did shape me. I had that kind of encouragement all of my school years. I think it’s why I chose to be a teacher.”
Another teacher in Sherwood Park was such a mentor that she calls him her cheerleader and a dear friend to this day. She sends him everything, otherwise he might demand it from her anyway.
“He was the one who said, ‘Okay, stop farting around and send out your stuff.’ I started to get published. Seriously! Without this man and these teachers, I’d just be like so many: just a little closet writer.”
She hopes to take that same ethos to her own practice, now that the shoe is on the other foot, metaphorically speaking. Sobat has been an author, a teacher and a mentor all around the world, including stations in several different countries across North America, Europe and Asia.
Mark Haroun is a former student, now an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and current executive story editor on CBC’s popular drama Heartland. He sang her praises, saying she was an integral part of his development as a writer, a tireless mentor and supporter from the first time he met her as one of her students at Bellerose.
“She has always taken me seriously as a writer, even when I was first starting out as a teenager. Over the years I have had the privilege of receiving her guidance and encouragement. Gail is an incredibly talented author and teacher, but also a creator of community. She has the innate ability to bring writers from all disciplines together and challenge them to be creative and take risks as artists.”
Haroun was one of the instructors at YouthWrite, the annual boot camp that offers weeklong workshops on almost any kind of writing under the sun for burgeoning young writers. Sobat created it almost 20 years ago. That helped her to kickstart the Spoken Word Youth Choir, a professional spoken word performance choir group.
Giving youth the chance to hone their writing is just one thing that she hopes to focus on to improve the perception and stature of stories for kids. She indicated that I was one of the few reporters who had ever actually interviewed her. Authors aren’t considered important enough if they write children’s literature, she speculated.
“Some people call it ‘kiddy litter’. Quite frankly, the biggest readers on this continent are young adults and children. They’re the ones that people buy books for still.”
Much of her own bibliography has been directed at teens, and it isn’t the kind of fluff that has vampires either. She isn’t one to shy away from stories about tough social issues including sexuality, bullying, being in trouble with the law and doing drugs. Her last book is about a boy who takes a gun to school.
“Here’s what I believe and I do believe this: everyone is a storyteller. We’ve got so many important stories to tell, especially in Canada. If we don’t tell them … our stories will disappear. I believe people need to tell stories. I think that that’s our birthright.”
She has planned workshops and does want to have her first talk to be about the industry and about getting published although her schedule for St. Albert is still being written. People can learn more about her through www.metrowir.com.
