When I worked for the Writers Guild of Alberta, the biggest part of my job was probably working with beginning and emerging writers. So you can imagine my surprise when the phone rang one day and I heard a voice on the other end of the line say: “Jason, it’s Will, Will Ferguson calling.” He went on to say he needed some advice.
I still even remember what he asked though I won’t say it here out of respect for his privacy. It was nothing scandalous, just a business-type question that you might imagine a bestelling, high profile Canadian author asking (not the “how do I get an agent?” and “How do I stop an agent from stealing my ideas?”-type questions I tended to get.) I didn’t have an answer for his question off-the-top-of-my-head but promised to look in to it. He gave me his personal e-mail, asked me not to share it with anyone and hung up.
I can’t remember if it came out of that same conversation but another big part of my job was organizing an annual fundraiser for the WGA. The event was held during Calgary’s Freedom to Read Week celebrations and I decided to invite Will to attend. He said he’d try to make it but wasn’t sure if he could. I had an ulterior motive – his book, “How to Be A Canadian” had just come out so I wanted to get a signed copy for my Canadian-born aunt who now lived in the States.
Will did show up at our event which was held at Kaos, a dark, smoky jazz club on 17th Ave (aka the Red Mile). He signed my book and I decided to push my luck. I’d taken a lot of ribbing from the other members of the FTRW committee because the previous year, Cuba Gooding Jr., who was in town to shoot “Snow Dogs“, had come into the bar while the event was happening so everyone joked that he was the “Surprise Celebrity Guest” and I had to do something to top this.
I didn’t have the Oscar-winning star of *Snow Dogs* but when he showed up, I asked Will if he would mind doing a spontaneous reading after the planned program. He grabbed my copy of his new book, said “give me a few minutes” and later, jumped on stage and absolutely killed with one of the funniest readings I’ve ever heard in my life – part stand-up comedian, part-bestselling author, part natural storyteller.
I had numerous encounters with Will during the rest of my tenure with the WGA – having him as a featured speaker on our Word on the Street main stage where he took the stage in a sleety-rain to the rocking strains of “Paperback Writer” to randomly running into him and his wife and baby around town to asking him to donate a book to a Canada Book Day event and having him show up at my office to hand deliver a copy of the Australian edition of one of his books. “I always like to donate something unique that people won’t have seen” he explained.
Anyhow, that’s a really long way to say that Will won Canada’s richest literary prize, the $50 000 Giller Prize tonight for his new novel, “419” and it couldn’t happen to a nicer, more genuine guy.
I’d actually taken his new book out from RPL just a couple weeks ago as I’ve read most of Will’s work and this one sounded like an interesting departure from his usual humour/nonfiction stuff. But I didn’t get to it and now that I’ve returned it, I suspect it will be a LONG wait until I get it again!
Anyhow, congrats to Will Ferguson!
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