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Written by Maureen Medved | #NoOneSucceedsAlone

For some reason, I’ve always loved to tell stories at parties. Friends have called out to me, “Can you tell the one about…,” so over the years I would tell the same stories repeatedly, often acting out the parts. Eventually, I turned story telling into story writing. My father died a few years ago, but I’ve always credited him for infusing me with a love of writing and storytelling. Then the other day at the Winnipeg launch of Black Star, someone asked how I’d developed the poetics in my writing. I spoke of my father and how he’d taught me to listen to the poetry of everyday speech.  After the launch, my mother said, “You should give credit where it’s due.”  Worried I’d offended her, I said, “What do you mean? I mentioned Dad.”  She said, “I’m not talking about your father.” According to my mother, I may have inherited my impulse to tell stories not from my father, but from her father. My mother’s father, my grandfather, came to Canada from the shtetls of Eastern Europe and was too busy trying to survive in Canada to write his stories. But he was renowned as a person who turned every opportunity into a story that would strike and paralyze a room with awe.  My grandfather died just a few years after I was born, so I never really knew him. But it’s true that my father had told me that even he didn’t open his mouth when my grandfather told stories. My father would always tell me that my grandfather, his father-in-law, was the superior storyteller. I assume this must be true since so few people ever speak so highly of their in-laws.

 

See Maureen at the 2018 Whistler Writers Festival