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Editors ‘not antagonists but allies’: Ward

By Andrea Ledding

SASKATOON — Donald Ward, local news editor for the Prairie Messenger, wears many hats — including recent winner of a CBC Literary Award for his short story called Badger, a compelling encounter between the title animal and a lone monk. The Saskatoon chapter of the Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) asked him to speak at their annual Spring Fling, and enjoyed not only some of his wisdom, observation and intimate sharing of his life, but a reading of his latest literary coup.

“When they phoned to let me know, I politely thanked them, hung up, went downstairs and told my wife, Colleen, and burst into tears,” confessed Ward, giving thanks and acknowledgement to “the creative force that governs the universe.”

An editor and designer, he has been involved in the production of more than 150 books in the past 30 years, and dozens of issues of magazines, newspapers and academic journals. He received the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award in 2003 for his short story collection Nobody Goes to Earth Any More (Coteau Books) and has another short story collection forthcoming. He has also seen many authors accept awards for books he had a hand in producing.

“No book comes to publication by the efforts of the author alone,” Ward wrote in The People, his 1995 survey of the First Nations of the western interior. “As an editor, in fact, I have sometimes wished we could dispense with authors entirely.”

Ward also co-founded Hagios Press, has been asked to address the national 2010 EAC conference in Montreal to speak on editing Aboriginal authors, and the day of his EAC appearance here received word from Purich Publishing that one of their books he had edited, Negotiating the Numbered Treaties, had not only been nominated for more awards but one of them included Ward being shortlisted for the Tom Fairley Award for Excellence in Editing.

Ward said his job is “to make writers look good — or at least, better,” despite there being some authors who would “rather be right than be read.”

Recounting tales of famed authors who were forced to make slight changes and decried the butchery, he noted that editors are not antagonists but allies.

Addressing his short story and its origins, Ward observed that he didn’t really have to write it so much as record things that were before him — “the rest was editing.” He also said all ideas come from the same place: that space between the ears and behind the forehead where information and memories are stored for each individual.

“I have come to know a great deal about the human brain over the past few years,” shared Ward, speaking of his wife Colleen’s experience with recovering from a neural aneurism. “We have a quadrillion synapses . . . enough to fill four football fields. . . . Our brains can make connections in more ways than there are objects in the universe.”

Ward also paid tribute to the CBC, calling it “a beacon and a guide” for all Canadians.