{"id":4,"date":"2010-08-13T05:41:41","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T05:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/"},"modified":"2011-03-03T05:17:40","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T05:17:40","slug":"biography","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/biography\/","title":{"rendered":" "},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_113\" style=\"width: 191px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-113\" class=\"size-full wp-image-113\" title=\"01 Glen huser - Front Step Photo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_1.jpg\" alt=\"01 Glen huser - Front Step Photo\" width=\"181\" height=\"252\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_1.jpg 230w, https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_1-215x300.jpg 215w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 181px) 100vw, 181px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-113\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">It seemed like, when I was a kid, the front step of wherever we were living was the spot for taking pictures.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Early Years<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>I was born February 1, 1943, into a world caught up in the throes of World War II. My parents lived on a small homestead in central Alberta, far away from the fields of conflict, but the uncle I was named for, Glen Daily, was with the Canadian forces in Italy, and my father\u2019s youngest brother, Norman Huser, was killed on a Normandy beach on D Day. Another uncle, Einer <span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Huser, was a paratrooper, but the war came to an end before he saw active service. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_112\" style=\"width: 207px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-112\" class=\"size-full wp-image-112 \" title=\"02 Glen Huser - Family\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic.jpg\" alt=\"01 Glen Huser - Family\" width=\"197\" height=\"201\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-112\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I\u2019m the baby on my mom\u2019s lap in the wartime snap.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">My father, Harry Huser, was not much of a farmer. He was happier with a sketching pencil in his hand or doing fine carpentry. <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">When my older brother, Dale, and I were still very young, my mother, Beatrice Daily Huser, urged a move to the nearby tiny hamlet of Ashmont. She found <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">work teaching in the area, while my dad worked at a number of jobs \u2013 logging, carpentry, garage mechanics, eventually driving a school bus. He had the small homestead house moved down to Ashmont and turned it into Harry\u2019s Hobby Shop, and it was here that he was always the happiest \u2013 at his turning lathe, or creating intricate designs with a fretsaw.<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_111\" style=\"width: 168px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-111\" class=\"size-full wp-image-111\" title=\"03 Glen huser - Sister and Birthday Cake\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_2.jpg\" alt=\"03 Glen huser - Sister and Birthday Cake\" width=\"158\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_2.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/pastedGraphic_2-210x300.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 158px) 100vw, 158px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-111\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">That\u2019s  me holding my sister\u2019s birthday cake.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> My family grew with the arrival of two sisters, first Karen, and then Sharon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Want to know a bit more about my life during these years? &#8212; check out <\/span><a href=\"#Road Trip\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Road Trip<\/span><\/strong><\/a><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"#Christmas Eve\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Christmas Eve<\/span><\/strong><\/a><span style=\"font-size: small;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<h3><strong><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">A Librarian with Green Paint on His Fingers<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_455\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic-e1299125128542.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-455\" class=\"size-full wp-image-455\" title=\"Glen as a teenager\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic-e1299125128542.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"274\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-455\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ah, yes \u2013 a very cool teenager in 1958. I actually did own some blue suede shoes \u2013 but I\u2019m just wearing penny loafers here. The world would be looking pretty fuzzy (without my glasses).<\/p><\/div>\n<p>While Ashmont had a consolidated school, the town itself was very small. As a teenager, I was always looking for chances to get away to the \u201cbig city\u201d \u2013 Edmonton \u2013 where I could catch the latest Elvis Presley movie, and browse through its gigantic library (even if I wasn\u2019t allowed, as a non-resident, to check any of the books out). Libraries intrigued me, and when I found out there were a number of boxes of books stowed away in the attic of the Ashmont Municipal Building, I convinced the town officials to let me set them out again in what had once been a makeshift library with rough wooden shelving and a barrel-shaped, wood-burning stove. One general merchant even donated some paint for the shelves. Convincing a couple of<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">friends to help me, we painted the shelves \u2013 two coats in fact, which never quite seemed to dry \u2013 and the book covers were always encrusted with bits of apple green paint. My friends and I \u201cplayed librarian\u201d \u2013 but mainly the old, donated book-of-the-month club selections and ancient encyclopedia sets provided me with reading material for my mid-teen years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_456\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-456\" class=\"size-full wp-image-456\" title=\"Glen Huser in front of the UN Building\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic_1.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic_1-239x300.jpg 239w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-456\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Here I am, a Popsicle Contest winner, in front of the United Nations Building in 1958.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The Popsicle Kid Goes to the Big Apple <\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>When I was fourteen, I won a week-long all-expenses-paid trip to New York for my mom and me. <span style=\"font-size: small;\">I\u2019d come across the contest information on the back of a comic book. It involved cutting out the initial letter from the Popsicle logo off a package and turning it into a design of some sort. I remember creating four designs (certain that it would increase my chances fourfold) and mailing the designs away to a United States address. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> At the time we didn\u2019t even own a telephone and news of my win was brought over to us by the railway station agent bearing a telegram.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> My mom was pegging laundry to our backyard clothesline when we got the telegram. Talk about a total look of amazement when she discovered its contents. Covert as I was as a teenager, I hadn\u2019t even told her I\u2019d entered the contest. She dropped her tubful of sheets and gave me a big hug.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> It turned out that there was a small horde of winners &#8212; but what was most interesting was the discovery that actually many of the parents had created the winning designs, entering them in their children\u2019s names. I remember my mother shaking her head over this bit of family fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">For a kid who had seen few buildings taller than the Ashmont grain elevator, a trip to the skyscrapered canyons of New York was an adventure indeed. It was a whirlwind tour &#8212; the Statue of Liberty, the Bronx Zoo, Radio City Music Hall, the Dodgers playing at Ebbet\u2019s Field.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Movie-mad in Edmonton<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_457\" style=\"width: 145px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic_2-e1299125675565.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-457\" class=\"size-full wp-image-457\" title=\"Glen at age 20.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pastedGraphic_2-e1299125675565.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"135\" height=\"198\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-457\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 1963, The Edmontonian Magazine asked me to give them a photo of me to accompany some of my film reviews so I remember going to a studio and having a \u201cprofessional photo\u201d taken. That\u2019s me at 20.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I<span style=\"font-size: small;\">n 1958 Mom and Dad decided it was time to leave our country environs and move to Edmonton. I would be going into grade 12 and then on to university. There would be better job opportunities for my brother. In those first couple of years in the city, though, I think my main occupation was catching up with as many movies as I possibly could. We now had a TV set with its offerings of afternoon films and late-night movies \u2013 there were only a couple of channels but that was two more than we had in Ashmont! \u2013 and the theatres around town gave me the chance to catch not only the new releases but a host of older movies in double features at the second-run cinemas. Yes \u2013 I was definitely movie crazy. When I completed two years of university and began teaching junior high school, I took on a part-time job reviewing films for <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The Edmontonian,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> a weekly community and entertainment magazine. It was a small magazine and I think I was paid something like ten dollars a column (for which I did my own graphics), but I discovered I loved writing about films almost as much as going to them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_126\" style=\"width: 292px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Edmonton-Journal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-126\" class=\"size-full wp-image-126\" title=\"Edmonton Journal\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Edmonton-Journal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"282\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Edmonton-Journal.jpg 311w, https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Edmonton-Journal-300x231.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 282px) 100vw, 282px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-126\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Here\u2019s an Edmonton Journal photo of me at work in my studio in 1981.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Paint brushes, Children\u2019s Books, and a Magpie<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">After teaching junior high for three years, I wasn\u2019t sure this was the life for me. Maybe I was meant to be an artist. I\u2019d been able to take art courses as a major at university and the Vancouver School of Art accepted me into a second-year of their program in 1964. This was the first time I\u2019d lived away from home and, much as I loved Vancouver, I decided to return to Edmonton the following year and resume my teaching. I spent another year teaching junior high, and then a couple of years teaching elementary grades. At that point, I thought I might quit and become a commercial artist, specializing in fashion illustration, but after a few months spent getting a portfolio together, I changed my mind and headed back for another year in the Education Faculty at the University of Alberta. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_125\" style=\"width: 169px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/pastedGraphic1-e1299127954999.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-125\" class=\"size-full wp-image-125\" title=\"Magpie Cover\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/pastedGraphic1-e1299127954999.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"159\" height=\"259\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-125\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Magpie \u2013 the quarterly magazine of children\u2019s writing and graphics I edited for 20 years.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I began focusing on courses in school librarianship and children\u2019s literature, and, when I returned to teaching, it was to take up a career as a teacher-librarian in elementary schools. I loved this job, and, increasingly, I was drawn to the world of children\u2019s books, joining selection committees, and securing a position as a reviewer of children\u2019s literature for The Edmonton Journal. In 1978, the Edmonton Public School Board had some money available for special projects so I proposed the development of a quarterly magazine featuring writing and graphics by students and took on the job of managing editor of the publication \u2013 a position I maintained until I left the school board in 1996. Unique in the annals of school district publications, the magazine, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Magpie,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> continued to be published until 2008. For my last 8 years with the board, I was a learning resources consultant, working not only with <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Magpie,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> but selecting media and assisting in libraries throughout the district.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t think I had enough going on in the 1970s so I adopted a seven-year-old boy, Casey. Instant fatherhood! Want to know more about this experience \u2013 check out <strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a href=\"#Fathers Day\">Father\u2019s Day<\/a>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_128\" style=\"width: 178px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/pastedGraphic2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-128\" class=\"size-full wp-image-128  \" title=\"Glen Huser - The Edmontonian Magazine Photo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/pastedGraphic2.jpg\" alt=\"Glen Huser - The Edmontonian Magazine Photo\" width=\"168\" height=\"210\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-128\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">That\u2019s  me trying a \u201cserious author\u201d look for my back-cover photo. I told the  photographer there would be a bonus for him if he could give me  cheekbones, but he couldn\u2019t manage it.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><strong><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Grace Lake<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"OLE_LINK2\"><\/a><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In the 1970s, I continued to work on my own creative writing whenever I had time. <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">During the 70s and 80s, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The Edmonton Journal<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> featured an annual writing competition and, in different years, I took first prize for short fiction, poetry and the one-act play. When I had the opportunity, I took courses from writers on the U of A campus \u2013 Margaret Atwood, Rudy Wiebe, and W. O. Mitchell. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">With publication of short stories in <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Prism International<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> and <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Dandelion,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> I was encouraged to study writing in more depth, and returned to the U of A to take a Masters in English in the mid 1980s. My creative thesis, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The Flowers of Alberta,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> was picked up by NeWest Press and published as <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Grace Lake,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> part of their Nunatak series of first novels. Well-reviewed, it became a finalist for a W. H. Smith\/Books in Canada First Novel Award.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Touch of the Clown<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"OLE_LINK3\"><\/a><span style=\"font-size: small;\">When I retired from Edmonton Public Schools in 1996, I found myself sorting through a file drawer of works in progress, and decided to continue working on a young adult novel about a clown actor who intervenes in the lives of a couple of neglected kids in a downtown Edmonton neighborhood. After workshopping a draft with my Edmonton writing group (several writers \u2013 we met intermittently to critique each other\u2019s work), I sent the manuscript of <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Touch of the Clown<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> to a number of Canadian publishers. Groundwood contacted me and indicated they would be interested in publishing the book, and put me in touch with Shelley Tanaka, one of their authors who also worked as an editor for the house. A lucky day for me \u2013 Shelley has been my editor on my young adult novels, all of which have won prizes or been shortlisted for awards<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Jeremy\u2019s Christmas Wish<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">At this time, I was also working as a sessional instructor in Elementary Education at the U of A, was briefly co-owner of <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Leaves,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> a flower and secondhand book shop, and was editing a series of beginning chapter books for a small local press, Hodgepog. As the press moved to Vancouver and I concluded my editing work, Hodgepog published one of my own novels for younger readers \u2013 <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Jeremy\u2019s Christmas Wish.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><strong><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Stitches <\/span><\/em><\/strong><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">and<\/span><\/strong><strong><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_104\" style=\"width: 316px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104\" class=\"size-full wp-image-104\" title=\"image2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"306\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image2.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image2-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 306px) 100vw, 306px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-104\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Receiving  my award from Governor General  Adrienne Clarkson at Rideau Hall in  2003. The book we are holding is a  copy of Stitches the Canada Council  had specially bound in red leather  with a puppet appliqu\u00e9d to the cover.  The book is something I continue  to treasure \u2013 the $15,000 prize money  is long gone!<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In 2003, Groundwood published my second young adult novel, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Stitches.<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> A story of a bullied teen and his close<\/span> friendship with a handicapped girl, <em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Stitches<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> won a Governor General\u2019s Award for Children\u2019s Literature. It also garnered Alberta\u2019s R. Ross Annett Award as the best children\u2019s book of the year. In 2007, my next young adult novel, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen,<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> became a Governor General\u2019s silver medal winner, and was a finalist for the Sheila Egoff Award for Children\u2019s Literature in B. C. and the Red Maple Award in Ontario.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Life in Vancouver<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">After traveling back and forth between Edmonton and Vancouver for a few years, in 2008 I made Vancouver my permanent home. I\u2019d been doing sessional work for UBC\u2019s Education faculty and, since 2006, teaching a Writing for Children and Young Adults component of UBC\u2019s online MFA in Creative Writing program.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">So\u2026what is my life like in Vancouver these days? I am part of a co-op community. This involves some volunteer hours each month, so I work on the newsletter, and have been serving on the board of directors. My studio window looks out onto greenery the year round \u2013 something I love. When there is snow in Vancouver, it never lasts for long. Rain \u2013 yes, but I\u2019m more of a rain person than a snow-and-ice person. My patio backs against an elementary school park and the sounds of children out playing at recess have a pleasant echo of those countless hours I spent working (and playing) with children this age. I live alone but I often have visitors \u2013 mainly family and friends from Alberta.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_260\" style=\"width: 297px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/GLen-Huser-relaxing-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-260\" class=\"size-full wp-image-260\" title=\"Glen Huser relaxing 2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/GLen-Huser-relaxing-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"287\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-260\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cozy corner of the living room in my Vancouver apartment.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When I\u2019m not at the computer teaching my online course or working on my own writing, you\u2019ll likely find me curled up with a book, or watching one of the old movies I collect. At other times you might catch me with my paint tubes, papers and canvas spread over my kitchen work table \u2013 or, with ear-phones on, playing my electric keyboard-piano (ear-phones because I\u2019m very out of practice and don\u2019t want to inflict pain on my neighbors). Exercise isn\u2019t really high on my list of things to do, but I do love walking around Vancouver\u2019s city streets and parks.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a name=\"Christmas Eve\"><\/a>Christmas Eve<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">So&#8230;Vancouver actually does get winter in a form other than liquid. As I write this, I am into my third year living here and yesterday was the first time I\u2019ve seen more than a dusting of snow on my patio.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Mind you, I wasn\u2019t particularly enthralled to be facing this fact, although I did have to admire the effect of the snow on the branches of the rhododendron outside my living-room window. That is, until one of the branches broke under the weight and collapsed into my plastic lawn chair like some visiting dowager expecting me to bring tea (or mulled wine) out to her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Coming from the prairies, I am no stranger to cold and snow. I grew up rubbing ice-tingling fingers together over coal heaters and kitchen cookstoves. At my grandmother\u2019s, the perfect place to sit and read a book on a cold winter day was on top of the woodbox right beside the kitchen stove. I think I may still have grooves on my backside from the pieces of cut wood my brother and I carried in by the armload and dumped into the bin until it was full.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The sound that woke me on winter mornings was the sound of my mother or my grandmother rattling the grates of these stoves as they revived the fires from coal embers and stoked them. I used to wonder if the name of the small town where I lived, Ashmont, had come from all of the piles of ashes that grew throughout the winter as people dumped out their ashpans at the edges of gardens, or behind bushes and outbuildings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Christmas Eve, in the midst of all of this cold and snow, has a particular texture for me as I remember those years in Ashmont. Of course, when you\u2019re a kid, it\u2019s almost impossible to fall asleep on the night before Christmas &#8212; even when you\u2019re a teen. My brother, with whom I shared a bed in an upstairs bedroom, always seemed to drift off before I did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Restlessly, I\u2019d sit up and, with a quilt wrapped around me, part the curtains by the bed, and look out over that night landscape of my tiny town. Our bedroom window faced out onto the backs of the buildings that lined Main Street. As the evening edged towards midnight, I could see the odd light still on in the kitchens and living rooms that nudged the post office and the general stores, while soft snow hovered like swarms of tiny white moths around the streetlamp at the corner of the alley.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> My father, when he built our two upstairs bedrooms &#8212; one for my sisters, the other for my brother and me &#8212; had cut a rectangular hole in the floor on each side of the partition and into this he\u2019d fitted a wooden grate. The grate allowed heat in from the living room heater below. But it also allowed music from the radio to drift up and the songs of Christmas, tuned low, filled our rooms like night itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> If I stayed awake long enough, I was certain I\u2019d catch my parents in the act of filling our stockings that hung limply, attached with makeshift loops, to a chairback across the room. There was just enough light from the streetlamp, with the curtains open, to see them. Of course, I\u2019d pretend I was asleep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> But I never caught them. Maddeningly, they sat in the kitchen below, playing an endless game of cribbage, knowing somehow that the litany of fifteen-twos and fifteen-fours would outlast any effort of mine to apprehend that adult world of Christmas stocking-stuffing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll still have snow at Christmas this year, but for all of you, I wish the pleasure &#8212; the treasure?\u00a0 &#8212;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">&#8211;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> of your own memories of the night before&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a name=\"Road Trip\"><\/a>Road Trip<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_106\" style=\"width: 330px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-106\" class=\"size-full wp-image-106\" title=\"Glen huser - School bus\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image5.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image5-300x182.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-106\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Huser family posed in front of my dad\u2019s schoolbus. That\u2019s me, squinting, with a hand over my eyes.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">A film I saw recently and thoroughly enjoyed was <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Little Miss Sunshine.<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> This saga of a road trip in a Volkswagon van as dysfunctional as the family inside it left me laughing, and I couldn\u2019t help thinking about\u00a0 a time when I was the age of\u00a0 Abigail Breslin, the youngster intent on winning a beauty pageant for kids, when our only mode of transportation was a pumpkin-colored school bus my dad owned. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> The bus was responsible for one half of our family income &#8212; my mom taught school; Dad drove the school bus. But it often seemed the bus itself consumed any profit. It had put in its years on rough barely-graveled roads, and its shaken innards often seized up. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> With the cost of repairs and tires, we certainly couldn\u2019t afford another vehicle, so the orange bus got us into St. Paul for grocery shopping, to the hospital in Elk Point to get our tonsils removed, and &#8212; when summer came &#8212; on the road for our holidays.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Like the Hoovers in Little Miss Sunshine, the Husers on the highway presented a somewhat unique tableau. While the school bus was not very comfortable, it was possible to get lots of people into it. On one trip to the mountains, my mother\u2019s parents, an aunt and assorted cousins joined my mom and dad, two sisters, my brother and me. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> My aunt, who was more of an older sister to us, organized back-of-the-bus activities that included tickle sessions, storytelling, singing forbidden songs such as \u201cWasn\u2019t God Who Made Honkytonk Angels,\u201d and re-enacting sequences from her favorite movies (the fall of Atlanta from <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Gone With the Wind <\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\">was a particular favorite). When the shrieking or laughing or crying became too loud, admonitions to \u201csettle down\u201d would volley back from the front of the bus, where the adults sat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> With such a range of kidney capabilities, there were many stops. Grandpa Daily, who liked to chew tobacco, took advantage of any roadside respite to work up a plug, reluctantly spewing it out onto ditch dandelions before reboarding. Grandma, commandeering a sharp-edged pancake turner, dug up plants for her flower garden. My mother strode up and down, reciting poetry about mountains, how \u201cthe splendor falls on castle walls.\u201d My dad smoked as he went around and kicked tires. We kids raced through the road embankment collecting rocks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Stopping for the evening involved hauling out and erecting a canvas tent. There wasn\u2019t room for everyone in it, so we kids took turns sleeping in the school bus. Those bus seats, covered with a hardy vinyl, might as well have been carved from stone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> My brother felt himself a winner, though, the evening he and my aunt had settled in for the night when a sudden hailstorm struck the farmer\u2019s field where we\u2019d pitched our tent. While the rest of us, inside our canvas shelter, held onto whatever we could grasp of the tent\u2019s edges to keep it from flying away, they watched from the haven of the bus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Hail manages to break the seal on tent canvas, and, once the hailstorm rolled away, we emerged, wet and bedraggled. But my grandmother had somehow managed to save two apple pies from becoming drenched. I can\u2019t remember why they were in the tent. An evening snack for the adults?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> We were all awake, and the school bus was filled with chatter and laughing, as we ate Gram\u2019s pie and watched our assortment of marble-sized hailstones melt in the spot where we\u2019d herded them into the aisle. That night everyone slept in the orange bus. Well&#8230;perhaps \u201cslept\u201d is too optimistic a word. I won\u2019t speak for the adults, but children, with the taste of apple pie in their mouths, and the wild wonder of a storm already congealing into the words of a story to be told again and again, had no trouble at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a name=\"Fathers Day\"><\/a>Father\u2019s Day<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_107\" style=\"width: 184px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-107\" class=\"size-full wp-image-107  \" title=\"image6\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/image6-e1297579295625.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"174\" height=\"203\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-107\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Casey with his pet guinea pig \u2013 the year he arrived to stay with me.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Father\u2019s Day. I suspect my reason for becoming a father wasn\u2019t particularly to end up on the receiving end of the latest Hallmark card figuring out some new way to rhyme \u2018glad\u2019 with \u2018Dad.\u2019 But I have to admit to having all of these cards tucked away; there\u2019s some things you just don\u2019t throw out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Fatherhood arrived very suddenly for me, when I was 33. True, there was a wait of several months (less than nine though) as Social Services conducted a background study into my home and habits. Once I was approved &#8212; and after a preliminary meeting &#8212; the child arrived, a full-blown seven-year-old.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Life was never to be the same. I was plunged into a world of frequent laundry, regular meals, knock-knock jokes, guinea pig pets, fishing excursions, helping with homework, finding babysitters, sorting out hockey gear, refereeing playground squabbles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> When the seven-year-old arrived, I lived in one of the older walk-up apartments in Edmonton\u2019s university area. I\u2019d moved into it on the strength of its proximity to classes I was taking to upgrade my teaching credentials &#8212; definitely not on the strength of its laundry amenities. The walk-up\u2019s washing room was actually a walk-down to the basement where an antique electric washing machine and wringer waited for those brave enough to use it. No drier &#8212; but some kind of a complicated scaffolding of wooden doweling for hanging clothes on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> The seven-year-old was intrigued by this netherworld, managing to instantly collapse the clothes rack and reassemble it in a different configuration. He was also determined to help this new dad with the process of feeding socks through the wringer. Imagine the chagrin of the caring father when he noticed his child\u2019s hand and arm following a sock into the wringer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Anyone knowledgeable about machines would have had the wherewithal to spring the tension release on the wringer. My knowledge is piecemeal at best. Didn\u2019t know there was a tension release bar, but I did know how to reverse the wringer\u2019s action. So that\u2019s what I did, and the arm and hand re-emerged (child still attached). Thank heavens there was barely any tension left in the tired old wringer anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> I remembered wondering if newly adopted children were removed from homes where they\u2019d been wrung out. But the child (with an arm that was sore for a couple of days) stayed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> And I got my first Father\u2019s Day card.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early Years I was born February 1, 1943, into a world caught up in the throes of World War II. My parents lived on a small homestead in central Alberta, far away from the fields of conflict, but the uncle I was named for, Glen Daily, was with the Canadian forces in Italy, and my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":72,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}