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Smart, sassy author tells writers to 'just do it'
Spring 2010 |
Catherine Gildiner, the smart and sassy author of the coming-of-age memoir Too Close to the Falls, shared some her experiences with a Sudbury audience March 25. The author was the guest of the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW), Sudbury YWCA, and Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). Proceeds from the event go to women's causes including bursaries for university students. Too Close to the Falls was released three months ago, and it is the follow-up to After the Falls, Gildiner's hilarious and candid books about her childhood in the 1960s in Niagara Falls and Buffalo area. Too Close to the Falls, in which Gildiner shares her high school memories, has been optioned for a movie by actress Martha Burns, (wife of Men with Brooms' Paul Gross) and Susan Coyne, one of the co-creators and co-stars of the award-winning TV show Slings and Arrows. "I just had a meeting with the screenwriters. It seems to be going well. (But when) you sell you book, you are selling it. They (want to) focus on an issue in the book between me and the nun who had so much influence on me for 12 years They want the two powerful people who fight it out...It will be interesting to see what they make of it. It is not going to be what I would have done." Her next book is titled The Long Way Home, which will document Gildiner's years as student at Oxford University, and then returning home to Canada at the time of the FLQ crisis. In an interview with Sudbury Living, Gildiner had some advice for writers who dream of getting published. "If you write something good, someone will find it....I say concentrate on writing, when the book is finished. then worry about getting published. "I sent Too Close to the Falls to a publisher on a Friday, I got an advance cheque on Monday...another publisher read it and said they didn't think it would sell. You can't get down about it." CFUW is part of an international movement that helps women, enriches communities, and promotes friendship. The club provides post-secondary scholarships to women. This year the Sudbury club is celebrating its 60th anniversary. CFUW has awarded $150,000 scholarships and bursaries to deserving students in the city during its 60-year history. Members meet at the Lions Resource Centre at 1233 Paris St. on the third Monday of the month.
"I really like doing the memoir, but now that I have a family, they say I can't write about them...so this is going to be last."
