Uncle Ben’s Sun-Ray Club

The topic was “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”. Boring, right? Unless, like me, you'd had the most enchanted vacation of all time.

I was a nine-year-old blossoming wordsmith when a kids' writing contest was announced in The Vancouver Sun. It inspired me to set pencil to paper to conjure the magical time I'd had at Disneyland a few years prior.

The theme park was three years old when we visited. And I was five.

The summer I was trying to write the Disneyland story, we were staying at my aunt’s beach house in Powell River, B.C. Sitting on a log, with a backdrop of ocean waves swishing ashore, I fell in love with the pencil scratchings that brought my experience to life.

The highlight of our adventure had been Tinkerbell flying from Sleeping Beauty’s castle to the Matterhorn. I searched for adjectives that could convey the thrill I felt in my five-year-old heart as I watched the glittering fairy soar through the dark of night, illuminated by a spotlight.

But: How do you put goosebumps onto a piece of paper? How can graphite accurately express awe? Can words really sparkle like stars and fairy dust?

I did my best, but there were problems: like, I wasn't sure how to spell "Matterhorn". Eager to get on with my tale, I put an “M” followed by a blank space. I planned to ask my mother the correct spelling later, then fill it in. Another problem: Where did one find a postage stamp and an envelope in a land of seashells and barnacles?

The contest deadline loomed and I had to finish my masterpiece and get it into the mail. My mother would know where to get the postal supplies but she was busy shucking oysters.

Finally, with her mollusk stew bubbling on the stove, she got me what I needed. I folded the piece of foolscap that held my treasury of words and slipped it into the envelope. I licked the stamp and afixed it. I dug the contest announcement out of my suitcase and copied the address onto the envelope: "Uncle Ben's Sun-Ray Club" it began.

I walked to the mailbox down the road and triumphantly put my story into the slot. On my way back to the beach house I was suddenly struck by the fact that I’d forgotten to put the missing word in.

I fretted and I cried. And then I accepted that all the focused imagination I'd put into my first attempt at completing a meaningful story was for naught. (The copy I wrote out and mailed was the only copy of my work.)

But - I won the contest! It netted me $1 in prize money and publication in The Vancouver Sun. To my delight, they had filled in my missing word - this was my first brush with good editors.

Since then, HarperCollins has published my novel, "The Gorgeous Girls", (they also have good editors) and I’ve made a little bit more money with my scribblings for magazines and newspapers. I've also won or placed in a few writing competitions, such as: third place in "Thrift Finds" here on Vocal:

I still write about the magic of existence, making art, the power of sparkles, falling in love, fairies in all their guises. But now, aware of the world’s injustices, I conspire to turn haters into lovers with my words: eg. this piece, which was honoured with Top Story this past June:

It isn’t easy, putting love into words, but it’s what motivates me to keep on writing, and so long as I love doing it, I'll continue.

And, I'm also a better speller now, although I confess that I had to Google "Matterhorn" just to be sure I had it right for this story.

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Thanks for reading!