ANNE DEGRACE
Susan Musgrave and Stephen Reid met when he was serving a 20-year sentence for bank robbery as a former member of the notorious Stopwatch Gang, responsible for more than 100 impeccably-timed bank heists in the 1970s. Stephen sent Susan the manuscript for his novel Jackrabbit Parole; she offered advice, and the two were married at Kent Institution in Agassiz in 1986.
Stephen had suffered abuse as a child and struggled with addiction the rest of his life, returning to prison in 1999 after a botched bank robbery. After his release he published a collection of essays, A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden, and lived a clean life as a family man in his later years.
The Elephant Mountain Literary Festival committee was thrilled when the two agreed to join us for our 2018 theme of “literary couples.” Then, last week, Stephen Reid died of pulmonary edema on Haida Gwaii, where they lived.
At the news, I felt sad for Susan and their children, sorry I would not meet this man with the tragic, fascinating life who could write so beautifully. And then there was the festival itself.
The Elephant Mountain Literary Festival planning committee aims for resilience, to anticipate every eventuality. But we weren’t anticipating this. Who would blame Susan Musgrave, EMLF writer-in-residence and bereaved partner in a featured “literary couple,” for retreating from everything?
And then we received her email: would we still like her to come?
EMLF committee member Tom Wayman has known Susan Musgrave for decades. “When I was a young writer living in Vancouver I can remember going to a bookstore with a couple of poet pals and all of us leafing through Susan Musgrave’s 1970 collection, Songs of the Sea-Witch. We were all jealous that she had a book of poems out already, at the age of 19, and here we were in our middle 20s with not yet even the hope of a book on the horizon,” he said.
Susan’s website describes the difficult years preceding that publication. “Committed to the local psychiatric ward, assigned to Room 0, she met most of the University of Victoria’s English Department. While she was plotting her eventual escape from the mental hospital, the poet Robin Skelton came to visit her. ‘You’re not mad,’ he said, after reading her poetry, ‘you’re a poet.’”
She was that, and more. Over the years Tom watched as Susan excelled in every literary genre, and in particular praises her 2011 poetry collection Origami Dove, which begins with the love poem, “Magnolia,” to her husband Stephen Reid, “a poem that since his death earlier this month now reads like a achingly poignant elegy.”
“Her command of language, her mastery of poetic form, the amazing scope of her emotional range in her writing ensure her place as one of our nation’s few enduring literary greats.”
When the committee met to discuss Susan’s willingness to attend the Festival despite the circumstances, Tom described her resilience. “She’s had a lot of challenges in her life,” he said. “She’s incredibly tough.” Susan’s bio on her website, susanmusgrave.com, illustrates that comment far better than I can in 600 words.
I am more fascinated than ever to meet this person of brilliance and resilience. You can too, at EMLF’s Saturday Night Live! event on Saturday, July 14 at 7:30 pm at the Hume Hotel. The lineup also features literary couple Esi Edyugan (winner of the Giller Prize) and Steven Price (Re-Lit Award winner), all interviewed live on stage after their presentations by Globe and Mail Western Arts correspondent Marsha Lederman.
Writers write in order to make sense of their worlds, which helps all of us make sense of ours. The Elephant Mountain Literary Festival strives to bring those words to the Kootenays, the better for all of us to find places of strength and resilience.
Festival Tales is a five-part column series. The 2018 line-up also features beer pairings with local writers at the 100-Mile Opening Gala, Saturday panel discussions and more. For information go to www.emlfestival.com.