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An Interview with Anita Daher

Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:44pm

Anita Daher has lived all over Canada but now calls Winnipeg home. She has won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, and her novel Spider's Song is up for the McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award (Older Category). On April 29th, Anita will launch the latest book in her Junior Canadian Rangers series, On the Trail of the Bushman. Recently she was kind enough to answer some questions for our website.

CG: Why did you decide to become a writer?

AD: I can blame that on faulty memory. From the time I was about twelve, devouring every book that interested me in the small school library in Baker Lake, Nunavut, I considered writers my heroes. I'd never met a writing hero, and certainly didn't think I could ever be one, and so I set that dream aside. It was toward the end of an eight-year career in Canada's aviation industry, struggling to balance shift-work, and life with two pre-school age children, that my mind turned again to stories. By this time I'd forgotten all about how I used to talk myself out of following my dream, and so off I went, chasing it, with focus and determination. I began my "re-education" in 1995, and writing with the intent to be published. My first book was on shelves in 2002.

CG: Your most recent book, On the Trail of the Bushman, is the third in your series about the Junior Canadian Rangers. What sparked your interest in the JCRs?

AD: Because I have lived in a number of northern communities I have been aware of the Canadian Rangers for a very long time. However, it was after I moved to Yellowknife about ten years ago that I became aware of the Junior Canadian Rangers -- then, a brand new organization. The JCRs are an organization of young people ages twelve to eighteen. Each patrol is established by a community, and led by Ranger leaders. Their values are strong, and I was impressed by how they focus on developing skills in three areas: traditional, survival, and Ranger. Often when there are difficulties in a community, whether threats from nature (forest fires), or difficulties with water, or someone lost on the land, they are there, pitching in with their Ranger leaders to do whatever they can to help. JCRs make fine role models, and excellent characters.

CG: Do you have a favourite among your characters?

AD: Oh wow, tough to answer! There are aspects of all my characters I really like -- even the nasty ones! From the JCR books I think I am most drawn to Colly, my blue-eyed Dene boy. His waters run deep, and I haven't yet explored all aspects of how he thinks, and what he will do as time goes on. I also really like Ed from Spider's Song. His manner of thinking is different from anyone I have ever known, and fascinating.

CG: Many of your novels are set in Canada's North West Territories. How important to you is protecting the north?

AD: I suppose there are several answers to a question like this depending on whether one is concerned with sovereignty, environment, social issues...perhaps something else. I think there are many very special regions in Canada worth protecting in a variety of ways, but the North is the one I am most drawn to. I am not sure why I feel such a connection, whether it is the land, or its people. The people are accepting and honest in ways I have never encountered elsewhere. But the land ...oh. All I know is that every time I go back to Yellowknife, set foot on the tarmac, and breath in that good, clean air, I am infused with an almost electric feeling from toe to top. It feels like home.

CG: What role does research play in your writing? Do you favour reading books on a topic or getting out in the field and trying things yourself?

AD: Both, really. When I set Flight from Bear Canyon in the Nahanni area of the Northwest Territories, I read every book I could get my hands on that was either about the area, or set there. But, when I actually planted my feet on the west bank of the South Nahanni River, just above the magnificent Virginia Falls, I found the undergrowth very different from what I had visualized despite the many books. Being there was invaluable. Also...there was a feeling, something so magnificent, powerful, and soul-filling that I suspect I will spend many books trying to recreate it for my readers.

Another example, and a story. In researching my parkour book, Two Foot Punch, I read as much as I could about technique and history, watched videos, corresponded through email with traceurs (male) and one traceuse (female), and met with the Winnipeg Parkour team. In order to get myself in the right frame of mind, I took to running every day, thinking that once I'd returned to a level of fitness I was pleased with I might take up the Winnipeg Parkour team up on their offer and join them for a jam or two. One morning I jogged past a preschool aged child, who was very interested in what I was doing. She told me she could run too. Not wanting her to follow me out of her yard, I challenged her to do a somersault. She did. I asked her if she could also do a cartwheel, and she didn't know what that was. I showed her...but the shifting of gravity caused me extreme discomfort. At that point I decided that I would be a traceuse only in my imagination...and in my mind, I was a great one!

CG: Your books often touch on tough or serious issues. Do you think it's important for kids to be challenged by the fiction they read?

AD: I think much more important than challenge, is connection. In finding their way through adolescence a young person might feel that they are completely alone in what they are feeling or experiencing. Outside of turning to someone they trust, a book is a safe place to connect with a character that is experiencing something similar. In seeing a character find their way through, a reader might find something positive and encouraging they can apply to their own lives. That is my greatest hope.

CG: Many of your books also have a mystery theme. Why do you think kids love a good mystery?

AD: In one way or another, we all love solving puzzles, don't we? We also love strong characters. I know that when I crawl inside the skin of a character I want to see them come out ahead in the end, and when they put together all the pieces and succeed...what a rush!

CG: You write for teens as well as younger readers. Which age group do you find more challenging to write for and why?

AD: One is so different from the other, and I must be in exactly the right frame of mind when I sit down to each. That is, when a middle grade story is unfolding under fingertips I must be my twelve-year-old self with all the curiosity and determination I had at that age. When I write a teen novel, in my mind I am sixteen again, and feeling all of the tortured emotional uncertainty of that age. The latter is more of a workout for me and so I suppose teen novels are the more challenging of the two.

CG: What has been the best moment of your writing career so far?

AD: Oh man, that is really a tough one. There have been a great many joyful moments. I don't think I can name just one. Recognition in terms of book award nominations and hellos on the street are cool, and moments of discovery when researching and working out plot are pretty rocking, but I think what really makes my heart swell is when readers take time to get in touch -- either though email, or snail mail -- to tell me how meaningful a story has been for them. Yeah, that is the best!

CG: Do you have any advice for young, aspiring writers?

AD: Know that success is not in having your work published, it is in finding your story in the first place and writing it all the way through to "The End." Be pigheaded in your pursuit. Know the journey is sometimes long, and that is a good thing. Explore every moment, and know that you are a writer and so you will write: always, and all ways.

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Enter to win a free copy of On the Trail of the Bushman. Send your name and phone number to one of the following addresses:

On April 29 we will draw the names of the lucky winners. Good luck!

Categories: Interview, Contests and Giveaways

More articles from books, kids-and-baby, teens

See:

Two Foot Punch

- Anita Daher

Trade paperback $10.95
Reader Reward Price: $9.86

Nikki blames her brother, Derek, for their parents' death in a house fire.

But when Derek gets involved with a gang, Nikki knows she is the only one who can save him. Enlisting the help of a girl named Rain, who uses her athletic abilities to carry out acts of petty thievery, Nikki uses all her gymnastic and free-running skills to stay ahead of the gang and keep her brother from being killed.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don't like to read!