NOWW Charles Wilkins

I had brunch with a writer today. Charles Wilkins. I won his book for getting a ticket early. How fun is that! I love his amazing way of seeing and describing the most ordinary moments as extraordinary. He travelled with the Great Wallenda Circus, hauling elephants and tigers, (he says the smelliest of animals), along the northern Ontario highway: "I imagined a bear emerging from her den, confused and dopey after months of hibernation, taking her first great whiff of spring and getting not just the essences of the North -- of hemlock, creek water, and birch sap -- but of the Asian jungles and plains, of elephants and tigers, alarms shocking to the point of sending her whimpering back to her hideaway, protective of her brood." (And since I have been hibernating at home for a few weeks, I felt a little dopey too this morning).

Ahhh, it was really fun listening to Charlie read and tell stories of his life as a writer. I have always romanticized the life of a writer. I still do.

I have had a love affair with books, and therefore, and naturally, writers, since I was a little girl and someone brought us a big, big boxful of books. I smelled them. I catalogued them. I looked at them. I tried to read them. After that, I often got books as gifts from my parents. I treasured all of them. I think writers are amazing. Words placed in an order that can move me to laugh. Or cry. Or giggle. Or get mad. I love how sometimes I understand some message from a book without understanding the words. The words just seem to form into a more tangible mass, completely different from the words, and I feel it but can't identify it further.

The day was presented by NOWW -- Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop
www.nowwriters.org