I spent nearly a decade in the literary non-profit sector and both served on the board of the SBA for a few years (as well as a frequent volunteer doing everything from taking tickets to running the AV presentation to arranging to have the annual posters framed) and also helping to organize multiple ABA Galas as an employee of the Writers Guild of Alberta during my years in Calgary (did I ever tell you about the time the very fancy Palliser Hotel hosted the Alberta Book Awards and later became a sports bar for one night only?)
Lots of memories from my first decade working come back as I watch these two videos, lots of familiar names and faces, lots of books to add to my ever-expanding “To Read” list!
[Edit: I also found a video for the 2020 Alberta Book Publishing Awards which are a bit different than the Alberta Literary Awards linked above. I won’t say too much but during my time at the WGA, Alberta’s literary awards were jointly presented by the province’s writers organization and its publishing organization but I am not surprised to see they went their separate ways given there was always a lot more tension between what each organization wanted compared to Sask where the awards are a standalone organization but may have board representation by some or all of the founding members – writers, publishers, and librarian organizations – at any one time.]
I was going through some old papers in a box under the stairs recently and came across a folder of articles I’d clipped and saved, long before most articles from popular magazines were available online from databases or from the magazine’s own web site like they are today.
Had to chuckle for a couple reasons:
* first, that in 1991, there was something in an article about Donald Trump “tripping up” that caught my attention so much, I decided to save it. (I was looking for something else so snapped this picture but didn’t bother to re-read the article…hmm, I should do that.)
* also funny that this desire to archive and preserve articles (even creating my own very basic index) was so strong in me that it was perhaps no surprise I would end up becoming a librarian.
* …and of course, it goes without saying, I was a uniquely nerdy kid as I suspect this was probably not typical behaviour among my peer group, even among the other nerds! I guess I could reach out to ask how they catalogued their D&D manuals to be sure though! 😉
Or maybe because I’m pretty sure he does this by not mentioning Covid once during the entire show?
Or maybe because, if he truly shot this all himself, that’s an unbelievable achievement in terms of the lighting, sound, composition and even “set design” for lack of a better term?
