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Sandra Birdsell is the daughter of a Russian born Mennonite and Métis father who met in Morris Manitoba, at the Scratching Chicken hotel. Her mother worked at the hotel as an upstairs maid, and her father worked downstairs apprenticing as a pool shark, and barber. Five children later, Sandra was born and there were five more Bartlette children yet to come. Sandra's mother is reputed to have held a low opinion of poets, saying, that liars and poets will wind up in hell. At the age of ten, the author embarked on a career as a poet and wrote a poem about dying and being denied heaven. She was awarded first prize in the Most Serious Poem category, by the student council of Morris MacDonald Collegiate. The prize being, five dollars worth of free dry cleaning. Thus, the writer, Birdsell, was born. But not before she married, had three children, two dogs, several cats and a collection of ill-fated goldfish, turtles and hamsters. She also toiled at various other professions, such as reading income tax forms for Revenue Canada, a stint as a cocktail waitress in a knock-off Playboy Bunny club, an Avon Lady, communications writer, seamstress and hapless secretary in her first husband's manufacturing business. |
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Although she always desired to be a dancer, actor and clown, writing became her first love. That was twenty years ago. Since then she has published eight books and has been fortunate to receive accolades and nominations for awards.
She discovered the short stories of Alice Munro while working as a stringer for the Canadian Book Information Centre. She swears that Munro's Who Do You Think You Are, was the only book she ever stole from a book display. She began writing short fiction when she attended a workshop and heard a young man read a story about growing up in small town Manitoba.
Her first creative writing instructor was James Walker at the University of Winnipeg. This was a university at noon course, and Birdsell had enrolled as a mature student. When Professor Walker came into the room, he was aghast to find nearly twenty-five would-be writers crammed around the table. He said, I want you to know that there are likely only two people in this room, who are writers. Birdsell remembers looking around the table and asking herself, I wonder who the other one is?
She then studied with Robert Kroetsch at the University of Manitoba. He was instrumental in coaxing the people at Turnstone Press to have a look at her stories. In a review of those first stories, Night Travellers, William French at the Globe and Mail said, "Birdsell has us well and truly hooked." By this time, Birdsell, herself was well and truly hooked, and couldn't think of anything she would rather do, other than write.
When Birdsell's three children grew old enough to find the refrigerator and fill their own bottles, writing began to take up more and more of her time. Writing and attending readings, and discovering South American authors, and British authors and American. She especially was enchanted by the work of Flannery O'Connor, and then later, by Anton Chekhov.
The further west I come, the better I feel in my skin, Birdsell is quoted as saying. Birdsell moved to Regina from Winnipeg in 1996, a distance of about six hours west on the Trans Canada. She wrote three books in a room the size of a postage stamp, while listening to the cars whiz by on the highway. But the prairie landscape was only a twenty minute walk from her back door and she went out into it early morning, spring, winter and fall. That landscape and its people continued to influence and inspire her work.
Now, in the year 2005, Birdsell is about to publish another novel, Children of the Day, with Random House Canada. She is also at work on yet another novel in a room that is slightly larger than the last one, and which gives her a view of a falling-down fence and a garden in progress, cars going to and fro at a nearby shopping mall and kids of various ages whizzing and clattering by on skateboards.
She continues to give up on various hobbies such as sketching, Tai Chi, dog training, physical fitness and improvisation. She now concentrates on gardening, which, in Saskatchewan is an exercise in faith and infernal optimism. She also takes vitamins, exercises, and spends a considerable amount of time in being what Liam, her youngest grandson calls, "silly."
*The above was written by Sandra Birdsell and first appeared in Saskatchewan Writers, Lives Past and Present, published by Canadian Plains Research Centre, University of Regina.
More about Sandra ...
Sandra Birdsell was born and raised on the prairie whose landscape and people continue to be the inspiration for her writing. Before publishing her first book, Sandra worked as an information writer, office manager, filing clerk, a volunteer in programs for inner-city children, a sales clerk, waitress and was a parent to three children for twenty-three years. Since the publication of her first book, Birdsell has written three collections of short fiction, four novels, a novel for children, radio and theatre plays, as well as television and film scripts.
Her first two volumes of short stories, Night Travellers and Ladies of the House, were published to critical acclaim in 1982 and 1984 and were subsequently published by Turnstone Press (Milkweed Editions) in the U.S., and McClelland & Stewart, in a single volume, Agassiz Stories. Sandra's short stories have appeared in many anthologies, such as The Oxford Book of Canadian Stories, From Ink Lake, and Stories by Canadian Women. Many of the stories have been translated and published in Spanish, Polish, Italian, French and German.
Her first novel, The Missing Child, received the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1989. Her second novel, The Chrome Suite, was awarded the McNally Robinson prize for best book of the year, and was nominated for a Governor General's Award in 1992. A third short story collection, The Two-Headed Calf, was also a Governor General Award nominee in 1997. This book was followed by the children's novel, The Town That Floated Away, which caught the attention of young readers who nominated it for both a Silver Birch Award and Red Cedar Award. Birdsell has letters from readers who attest that the book is as good as J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter.
Sandra was awarded the Marion Engel Award in 1993, Canada's most prestigious prize given to a woman in mid-career, and the Joseph B. Stauffer Prize in 1992, for meritorious achievement, by the Canada Council for the Arts. She has been writer in residence at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, the University of British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and McMaster University, where she completed work on a novel, The Russländer. The Russländer was published by McClelland & Stewart in September 2001, and was a bestseller and finalist for the prestigious Giller Prize. The Russländer was also awarded Book of the Year, Best Fiction, and the City of Regina awards at the Saskatchewan Book Awards in 2001.
Sandra has read from her work throughout all of Canada, has been a participant of literary conferences in places such as: the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors, Winnipeg and Vancouver literary festivals, the University of Messina and Ca' Foscari, Italy, Canada House in London, England, Nottingham, Washington State University, University of Upper State New York, University of North Dakota.
She has twice been a juror for the Canada Council Governor General's Award, The Marion Engel Award, The Timothy Findlay Award, Alberta and Manitoba Book Awards. She has been writing and publishing for twenty years, and presently lives in Regina where she is working on another novel.
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