From Idea to Book — 28 Years

In 1997 I travelled with an aunt and other family to Scotland. Aunt Lois was in her nineties. Once, as we younger people headed off to a beach that was not accessible to her, she urged us, “Bring me back something interesting.”

As we walked along the beach, occasionally picking up a stone or feather, I was aware of intangibles that wouldn’t be possible to share with our aunt. I got the idea to write something, as a way of sharing the beach experience with her. (I used “Gran” instead of Antilo for better rhythm.) I put it in a card with a photo of Lois’s niece Sheila, at the beach, on the front of it.

I submitted the poem to publishers, sometimes revising it between submissions. Some liked it, but never quite enough.

During the winter of 2021 an idea came to me — out of the blue, as ideas sometimes do — for a change to the ending. I made a few other tweaks too. I was working at the time with Greystone on what would become A Tulip in Winter: A Story About Folk Artist Maud Lewis, and decided to see if they’d be interested in what was by then, What I Would Bring You.

Greystone already had another ocean book in the works. Would I be willing to try expanding the setting beyond the ocean?

A wild beach in Nova Scotia that I’d visited many times, walking through a meadow and woods to reach it, came immediately to mind.

By spring 2021, I signed a contract with Greystone. A wonderful illustrator, Maya McKibbin, was keen to take the project on — except for one thing.

Maya liked nature’s role in the story but, as an Indigenous person, didn’t feel she could illustrate a book that implied that it’s okay to take things away from the natural environment; such things should be left where they’re found.

Greystone didn’t tell me to change it. They could, they said, find another illustrator. But I could not imagine hearing an Indigenous person’s concern about the story, and choosing to disregard it — even though for a few hours it felt as if, with the necessary change, the whole story might unravel.

Then… hadn’t I shared my Scottish beach experience with someone through my writing? Could the child in this book not do the same through their drawings?

If You Were Here began on a beach in Scotland. Nova Scotia provided its expanded environment. Canada’s west coast, where Maya McKibbin lives, inspired the book’s art.

I dedicated the book to Lois, who died in 2003 at the age of 97, and to Sheila, who died in 2015 at the age of 59. I know they’d both have been delighted to see what came of that beach walk day in 1997.