Making the Grade

Labour Day weekend 2006 I left the cosy confines of Boyle Street and let myself be shut into a bookstore in the south end of town for the first ever television version of the 3-Day Novel Contest. Before I went, I spent a few hours wandering around my neighbourhood and making notes about the place.

So I wrote a novella set in my neighbourhood. It's fiction - none of the characters are real people, but they are based on real situations. There's the homeless Cree woman who showers under the outdoor tap outside my kitchen window. And the do-gooder United Church intern minister from suburban Ontario. And the gang of kids looking for homeless people to beat up. And the hookers and dealers and dog walkers and cat ladies. The bars, the park, the cemetery int he river valley.

Got word on Monday that the book didn't win the big International 3-Day Novel Contest based inVancouver - but it DID make the shortlist. We still don't know who won the television version of the contest, and I suppose we won't know until March when they shoot the final episode of what has become an 8-part series.

I spent a couple of hours in November serving lunch at the Bissell Centre as a volunteer. So many hungry people. People rotated through, some of them lining up over and over so they could amass enough sandwiches to take back to family or to keep them through another meal. We shovelled out those sandwiches as quickly as we could, and I kept trying to stifle that voice that said "What's really happening here?" because at the end of the day, all that's happening is this: people with enough food are sharing. Yes, I could care more about the root causes of poverty and hunger - and maybe I should, because as a celiac if I ever find myself relying on the Bissell Centre for lunches I'm going to have a rough time! But there's no point trying to fix someone's life when the immediate need is to make sure they don't starve.

The best news was hearing that the number of after hours requests for water at the Bissell Centre has dropped dramatically since we turned the tap on outside our house. As starving artists we can't really afford it, but where did the public water fountains go? When they redid Churchill Square? When they redid Giovanni Caboto Park? When they renovated Edmonton Centre Mall? Why are we begrudging people access to water and food?