Our Kuldip Gill Fellowship Writer in Residence in 2019 was the venerable Robert Wiersema. Here are his parting words after eleven weeks of sharing his insights about writing and life…<\/p>\n
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One of the only reasons I\u2019m still on Facebook is to check my Memories; I like to start my mornings by looking back at what I was doing (or at least posting about) a year ago, six years ago, eleven years ago…<\/p>\n
This morning, March 27, my Memories reminded me that it was actually something of an anniversary. Six years ago \u2013 March 27, 2013 \u2013 I set my out-of-office autoreply and turned out the lights in my office at the bookstore I had worked at for more than fifteen years. Owing to a fortuitous Canada Council grant, and a very understanding employer, I was taking five months off work to write a novel.<\/p>\n
I never went back.<\/p>\n
The writing went well, and various other things lined up, and suddenly I was no longer a bookseller who wrote but a writer who taught.<\/p>\n
My life changed on that day in 2013, but I didn\u2019t know it until later; I\u2019m trying to be more aware of these things, now.<\/p>\n
For example, I\u2019ve been very aware and upfront about this: my time as the Kuldip Gill Fellowship Writer in Residence at UFV has been life-changing.<\/p>\n
Over these eleven weeks I have been more productive than I have been in years. I\u2019ve been writing new work, revising and revisiting old work, expanding other writing projects. The time spent talking with students, either in class or in meetings, has been inspiring, and at times overwhelming. There\u2019s so much good work, so many good writers. It\u2019s been amazing, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to spend this time in your company. I don\u2019t need to look back, this time: I have been able to actually feel my life turning a corner.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m feeling melancholy that my time at UFV is coming to an end; it\u2019s been good for me here.<\/p>\n
I hope I\u2019m not alone in feeling that.<\/p>\n
I hope your time at UFV is as positive, as affirming, as transformative, as mine has been.<\/p>\n
Maybe you don\u2019t look at it like that. Maybe, with it being the end of the semester, you\u2019re too overwhelmed to think about it at all.<\/p>\n
Trust me on this, though \u2013 you will.<\/p>\n
Down the road, you\u2019ll look back on this time as transformative, not just educational but epochal.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t wait, though. Look around you now. Look for places to explore, challenges to accept, things to fail at. That\u2019s right: actively seek out things to fail out. Things that stretch you to your limit. Look for places to play. Look for places to experiment. Don\u2019t look for the easy A, look for the things that will change your world.<\/p>\n
Savour this time in your life. Don\u2019t rush through it.<\/p>\n
Or, as a great philosopher once said, \u201cLife moves pretty fast. If you don\u2019t stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everything we learn, everything we experience, becomes a part of our story, and a part of the stories we will grow to be able to tell.<\/p>\n
Welcome to my story. Thank you for being a part of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our Kuldip Gill Fellowship Writer in Residence in 2019 was the venerable Robert Wiersema. Here are his parting words after eleven weeks of sharing his insights about writing and life… One of the only reasons I\u2019m still on Facebook is to check my Memories; I like to start my mornings by looking back at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}