Alison Garwood Jones

Back in the fall of 1999, this quote by Richard Ford in The Globe and Mail seemed important enough to scribble down. Translation: it rocked my little whitebread world which, true to form, consisted of Enya, getting lost in Kenny G’s mane, Mac matte lipstick and a shiny black Nissan Pathfinder.

“My view of writers I admire is not that they are sturdy professionals with a specific set of skills and how-tos, clear steps for career advancement and a saving ethical code; but, rather, that they are gamblers who practice a sort of fervidly demanding amateurism, whereby one completed headlong endeavour consumes almost entirely its own resources and generally leaves its author emptied, dazed and bewildered with ringing in [their] ears.” 

I stopped driving that Pathfinder after I tried writing for real. I was too dazed and confused to focus on the road. Kenny has since been remaindered in a yard sale or two.

Kenny, words fail me.