Jane Buss is tired. She sits in her dark, cubbyhole-like
office, plastered with posters of literary events. “I have six little
fires burning here,” she says, pointing to piles of papers on her desk
from writers who need her help. “That’s in addition to building a
library and running the programs and workshops. I’m never bored, but we
do burn out.”
Buss is in her 17th year as executive director of the Writers’
Federation of Nova Scotia—a two-person organization that’s been
supporting writers in the province for 29 years. She says though the
number of members—around 900 writers—and number of contracts on her
desk continues to grow, she struggles with limited resources and more
complex challenges.
“It’s never easy, but boy, oh boy, is it hard right now,” she says,
adding her job now involves advising writers about electronic rights
and thinking of ways to support a generation of aging writers with no
pension.
This year, in an effort to minimize the chaos, WFNS broke off from
the Atlantic Book Awards and Festival (April 14-19), a group they
started in 1999 to amalgamate smaller awards ceremonies around the
province. Instead, they’re organizing Atlantic Ink (May 4-9), a smaller
awards ceremony and festival with four awards sponsored by the WFNS, as
opposed to the 12 presented last year at the Atlantic Book Awards. This
allows them to focus time and energy on their current priority:
sustainable programs for writers.
“Our goal, short and dirty, is to get money in writers’ pockets,”
she says. “Circuses are nice but bread is vital. What sustains a
Stephen Kimber or a little Sarah Mian who’s just starting out? That’s
what’s important.”
A third of the WFNS funds ($100,000) go to a program called Writers
in the Schools, where they pay a writer to teach at a school in their
area for a day or half day. Buss says though the salary is only $250
per day, writers aren’t travelling far, so they can teach as many
workshops as they’re offered and get better known in their
community.
“The only thing writing needs is time, and unfortunately time costs
something,” says Buss, pointing out that only the WFNS’ $15,000 fiction
award could sustain a writer for any amount of time. “Can we afford big
splashy-splash stuff or do we invest in communities and people?”
Meanwhile, the other four organizations involved in the Atlantic
Book Festival and Awards are expanding the event. They formalized a
non-profit society in January—made up of nine board members from
various publishers, library systems and advocacy groups—and want to
hold future events in other Atlantic provinces.
Heather MacKenzie, president of the Atlantic Book Awards Society,
says with limited resources, one large awards ceremony makes more sense
than many smaller ones, because impact and attention from the media and
public are greater. She says though one award (on average $1,500) can’t
support a writer, their book will get attention, better circulation and
more sales. And, she says, celebrating success and giving authors
something to look forward to is important.
Robbie MacGregor, co-founder of Invisible Publishing, says that in a
time when creative industries are struggling, the literary community
needs to support one another by pooling resources. He says local
festivals and awards ceremonies are important for getting writers
noticed. Without festivals like the Halifax International Writers’
Festival—cancelled this year due to personal reasons of the organizer
Heather Gibson—MacGregor won’t be able to sign international writers
because he can’t get local media attention to market them.
Lesley Choyce, award-winning author and owner of publishing company
Pottersfield Press, sees awards as a necessary reality of being an
author. “I think most writers are happy to sit in their little rooms
and write books,” he says. “But they have to find a publisher to make
income from it and have to be out there in front of the public at
festivals to get media attention.”
When Buss looks at her desk she still sees fire, and wonders how she
can best use her resources to put them out. “We’re all running,
running, running, doing, doing, doing,” she says, flaying her hands up
and down to mime a runner. “OK, great. Fabulous. We exist. But do we
want the province throwing money at us to do festivals or investing
money in more interesting, sustainable programs?”
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.