Award-winning Okotoks author Lee Kvern is excited to be sharing her gift for gab, visual arts and short fiction writing with Airdrie residents as Airdrie Public Library’s (APL) Writer-In-Residence in November.
“If your goal as a writer is to share it with a wider audience, practice coupled with craft makes perfect,” Kvern told the Airdrie City View in a recent interview. “If a writer writes strictly for themselves (as in daily journaling), then that’s okay as well.
“What matters most is that you write, and you love it. That, in my mind, makes the writer.”
Airdrie’s writing community will be able to lean on Kvern’s professional experience and mentorship throughout the month of November.
Kvern’s short story collection “7 Ways To Sunday” won the national CBC Literary Award, Western Magazine Award, Hazel Hilles Memorial Short Fiction Prize, and the Howard 'O' Hagan Award (twice) and CBC Alberta Anthology (twice). Her novel “Afterall” was also selected for Canada Reads and nominated for Alberta Books Awards. “The Matter of Sylvie,” another of Kvern’s novels, was nominated for Alberta Book Awards and the Ottawa Relit Award.
Kvern, who draws inspiration from many short fiction writers including Canada’s Nobel Prize-winning Alice Munro and short story master Joyce Carol Oates, among others, said even in her novels, she stays true to the techniques of short story writing.
“I always come back to the short form,” Kvern confirmed. “I like short stories because they require a miniature, polished kind of focus. Where novels can be large and sprawling, a short story can’t. It’s super challenging to write but that’s what I like. A short story forces me to figure out what I’m trying to say in as few words as possible.”
Kvern, who is also a visual artist, said many of her works incorporate intense visual images.
“I often get the comment that my writing is extremely visual and I think that relates exactly to my art training,” she explained. “Many of my stories are based on things that I’ve seen or witnessed and have seared themselves into my mind, so that I can do-nothing less than put them down on paper in a short story or as the opening scene for a novel.”
The experienced novelist said she also feels the need to confront social problems and issues in her works.
“I find that in fiction, a writer can examine scenarios that are otherwise too sensitive, too minefield for real life discussion,” she said. “(In) fiction, it’s no holds barred. Alice Munro talks about holding something up to the light in order to examine it. I, particularly, like that aspect of fiction.”
Kvern said she looks forward to sharing her feedback, her concerns and her skills with local writers in Airdrie through her month-long Writer-In-Residence role at APL.
“I’ve been lucky enough to do writer residencies over the past decade, and what I love most is the one-on-one with the writers and their particular projects,” Kvern explained. “I learned to write over the years by mentoring with professional writers in various courses, workshops and writer retreats. I’m enormously grateful for the terrific writers I got to work with that each taught me a different aspect of writing fiction … I look forward to connecting with the writing community in Airdrie.”
This year marks APL’s third time offering the Writer-in-Residence program. Previous authors who held the November-long residency included C.B. Forrest in 2020 and Simon Rose in 2021.
Differing from previous years, Kvern’s residency will be the first time the library’s program has been held fully in person rather than virtually, thanks to the removal of COVID-19 restrictions earlier this year.
For a schedule of Kvern’s blue-pencil editing sessions, workshops and other availability, visit airdriepubliclibrary.ca.
