Red Fern Book Review by Amy Tyler

Canadian Book Club Award Winners Part 1: Ben Sporer, Jane Enright and Kelly S. Thompson

• Amy Tyler • Season 5 • Episode 7

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I had the opportunity to sit down with three recipients of The Canadian Book Club Awards and discuss vulnerability and accessibility in writing as well as explore what it means to be a Canadian author. This episode is part of a four part series on The 2024 Canadian Book Club Awards that will run throughout the summer. 

Books discussed:

Output by Ben Sporer

Jane's Jam by Jane Enright

Still I Cannot Save You by Kelly S. Thompson

About The Canadian Book Club Awards

Follow the Canadian Book Club Awards:

Instagram: @thecanadianbookclubawards

Website: canadianbookclubawards.ca

Follow Ben: 

Instagram: @outputbook

Follow Jane:

Instagram: @janeenright.author

Website: janeenrightauthor.com

Follow Kelly:

Instagram: @kellysthompsonwriter

Website: kellysthompson.com

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Newsletter: https://www.redfernbookreview.com/newsletter

Unknown:

Greatest feat of this book was to take something so ugly, so many years of ugly, and to squeeze some beauty out of that. And and that can only be done really by taking it, taking something and really like turning it up to the light and looking at it from different angles. And that angle often has to not be your own. There was so I like to think I made something beautiful out of it. You

Amy Tyler:

Amy Tyler, hello. Welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Tyler, and today I'm going to do a little bit of a switch up, and I have the opportunity to interview three authors who are recent recipients of the Canadian book club awards. And what's going on is the Canadian book club awards have sponsored me to do three podcasts over the summer, and I'm going to be highlighting the recent winners. So this is a great opportunity to introduce you to some new authors and who've written in a variety of genres. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about the awards, and then a little give you a little preview on the authors, and then we'll move over and talk with them. So the first thing I want to tell you is that the Canadian book club awards are Canada's largest Readers Choice Awards. They're open to all authors, regardless of publishing type. That means self published authors, traditional authors, and authors who've kind of done a hybrid of the two. And the submissions for the 2025 awards are still open, so I'm going to put a link to the awards in the show notes, in case you're an author and would like to apply. And then another really fun thing is the way these awards work is they're open to anybody, any author from around the world, but they are judged by Canadian readers. So if you want to sign up to actually be a reader for the awards, you can do that, and I'll also send you a link, or put a link in the show notes for that. So that's kind of cool. Okay, so over to the authors themselves. Today. We're going to talk with three authors who've written in non fiction, and it was really fun. As soon as we got on the call, they just started gabbing. And it was very natural, because they're all interested in writing and reading, and they just were sharing information, and kind of forgot I was there. And then one of the authors, Kelly, was like, oh, wait a minute, we're here to talk to Amy. So that's actually perfect. That's exactly what I the environment that I hope to create. But let me tell you about these, the authors themselves. So today we're going to talk with Ben Spore, who's written a book called output, optimizing your performance with lessons learned from sport. And he's a high performance coach. He primarily works with elite athletes, but he also works with anyone who wants to perform at a high level. And what he's done is he's created a concise, very accessible book with kind of tools and tricks that you can use if you want to kind of glean what people do, particularly athletes, how they kind of tap into high performance, and how you might kind of apply that to your own life. The second author we're going to talk to is Jane Enright, and she's written a book called Jane's jam, inspiration to create your super awesome life. She's written, I call the book of it joyful. On the front cover, it's blue, there's just a smiley face and some wings, and it's just, it's very joyful. But the book actually has quite a serious premise. She's been through some health situations and had some personal losses, and she's created a book to try and help people through difficult times, kind of a little guidebook. And the last author we're going to speak with today is Kelly S Thompson, and she's written a book called still a. Cannot save you. And you may know about her from a previous memoir she wrote a few years ago called Girls need not apply field notes from the forces. So she was in the Canadian Forces, and has written about some of her experiences there and some of the tough things that she faced. But this book, I can't say enough about this particular memoir that she wrote. It's about her sister who ended up she was a drug addict, and so she has quite a complicated relationship with her sister. Her sister then became sober, but went on to die of cancer. So I think what I really liked about this book is just it just was so honest and vulnerable and just super well written. So with that, I'd like to move over and talk with the authors. So I'm joined here by then, Kelly and Jane, and you're all writers, and you just kind of got into it and start talking about publishing and writing, and that's why we're here. But yeah, why don't we just get started? I just want to dive right in. And the first thing I wanted to talk about is, Jane and Kelly, you're writing, you know, what you wrote is quite personal, and you're both quite vulnerable. And I just wanted to talk about how we'll start with you, Kelly, in your acknowledgements, you thank your sister, Megan, for telling you to write the book that you wrote and not to leave out the ugly parts. So one of the things I just wanted to observe is that you are very vulnerable and honest, and that makes everything very authentic. And I think as a writer, the more personal you make things, the more people can tap into their own they don't know. They don't necessarily can't relate to your story, but they can relate to those feelings of, you know, love and loss and disappointment. So I just wanted to ask about what was that like for you to be so vulnerable, and how did you also decide what to share and not share.

Unknown:

This is a big question with so many I don't even answer, but I think when it comes to my sister, when she was dying and was quite the victim of domestic violence and was an addict for many years, so our relationship had a lot of ups and downs, and even as she was dying. She was making these choices around her marriage and her children that were really hard for us as her family on the other side. And there were so many moments where my sister and I would connect eyes over everyone else, and you see something in one another that only you can as siblings, I think, and I she used to say to me, you're so much stronger than me while she's laying in a hospice bed dying. And I'd think, who are we kidding here? But sometimes I think she she relied on me to do some emotional heavy lifting for her that she wasn't able to do in terms of dying is hard work. She she didn't have enough time to dedicate elsewhere, and when she said to me, write all the ugly parts, it was my sister really liked to smooth over some of the ugly edges of her life, because it was easier to cope with that way. And Who among us has done the same thing? So having my sister's permission to do it helped. It was also my second memoir. So at the time my sister was dying, I was writing my first one about being in the military and about sexual harassment. So I think, like laying it all out there is sort of par for my course. We used to laugh my sister and I too, because we come from this super family where, generationally, you kind of keep things to yourself. You don't do a lot of complaining, you don't over share. I I make a profession now out of oversharing. So I had this moment when I was trying to think about what to include and what not, because the book does really sit with a lot of difficult, emotional, ugly moments, including the scene where she dies is very intense, but as you do when you lose someone, I was like, this is a great time for a PhD. It wasn't but I didn't anyways. And I was studying creative writing and how you write about grief, and I was so I was reading all these books on grief and everything would kind of martyrize The person who died. They were perfect, they were wonderful. They were we're ugly and flawed. That's what makes us beautiful. That's why we read memoir. That's why we read nonfiction, I think, to learn and grow from our mistakes. And I. So really looking at it from an academic side contributed to how I brought in the heart of the book as well.

Amy Tyler:

What about you? Jane, what was your process and how? How did you decide what to include and not to include, in terms of when you were kind of explaining what had happened to you?

Unknown:

Oh, well, thank you. I think it's a great question, and I feel very honored and grateful to be in such esteemed company with Kelly and Ben And you, of course. I mean, I'm a very I don't have any formal training as a writer. I wrote for business, but I don't have an English degree. I mean, yes, I have an English I have a background writing reports and a university degree, but as my father would say, Jane, you have a DPE, a Doctorate of personal experience. You don't have a PhD, you have a DPE. And that's something we all have. And when I was, I mean, I went through like Kelly, I went through a grieving process of losing a lot of things in my life, three very sad, you know, traumatic events, all within 365 days, almost to the day. And of course, one of the cornerstones of that was my my relationship with my best friend, Jen, who was my rock and my source of support through I was go, I was going through a lot of these things, and not then all of a sudden, at the end, boom, she was gone. And, you know, I think in terms of authenticity, I'm always, I believe in being your true, authentic self and sharing, but I also, you know, always with love, do no harm. I could have put in a lot more of the ugly parts about what was going on around me, because it's been my experience with trauma and loss that people it's almost like, oh my gosh, you know, I can't handle that, you know? And they sort of back away, and they can't necessarily deal with the feelings that you're experiencing, and they don't want to be around that. And that's fair. So I didn't try and sugarcoat things, but I sort of just like to write in a very salient, practical way. And I shared, I shared very personal writing, like my note to Jen, that was a real that was my real letter to her, like in the hospital, you know, when she was passing and, you know, it was like she was a very no nonsense. Let's get it done. But I really got forward with a lot of gratitude. And I said, look at I wish I could take this all away from you. This is the most terrible thing that has ever happened to us as friends, but I'm grateful you called me and said that you needed me. And I said, it's the worst call I ever got, but it's the best call I ever got, and that's sort of how I move forward with it. But I didn't, you know, I chose very I didn't choose to write necessarily about reactions of others while all of this was happening. And, you know, that's that's just me. I hope I included. I hope I included. I tried to include examples and bring brevity to it with the humor that I tried to see, which is not diminishing what happened, but rather saying, Okay, this has happened. I accept it. I'm not happy about it, and neither are the people around me. But how are we going to move forward? So that's sort of how I approached my writing.

Amy Tyler:

Now, second to that, you, you do have humor in the book, and I it's also even from the cover, like it's it's joyful. So talk about that choice, and also how your ability, I mean, you talk about you have a process to become positive, and that's what the book's about. But where does that come from? That ability to

Unknown:

be joyful? Oh, well, thank you for that. Like light, life's not all lollipops and rainbows. I mean, Kelly's been in the military, military, Ben, you're a sports psychologist. I mean, we all you know, you know, Amy, you're, you're, you're an editor and a writer yourself. So, I mean, I come from a place again, I'll go back to acceptance. You're not, you know you're you're not happy necessarily, about what's happened in your life. This unexpected change, unexpected change can bring wonderful things, you know, like a marriage proposal or a new relationship, or, you know, a windfall of money or birth of a baby, but it can also bring the heart sad and ugly. Is like, wow, this came out of left field. I don't know where this came from. I used to teach kindergarten. Years ago, I taught in an indigenous community in sachika lake, and I loved it, and it was a very happenstance, you know, experience that I went there to join my spouse, and he was teaching at the time, and they just suddenly needed someone, because somebody was ill, and I had teaching experience, so they hired me. And so I really learned a lot. I come back to all we I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. So I was, when I was coming up with the book, I thought, you know, I've gotta, I've gotta tell people how I handled this in a very simple ways and straightforward way and authentic way. So I came up with OMG outside and thinking mindfulness and gratitude. So when we go through a crisis, we say, Oh my god. My goodness, oh, my God. What's next? It's just our brain's way of processing. And I said to myself, well, OMG, how can I break that down? So that's what I started to do. And I drew a lot of a lot of soul searching from author Michael S singer the Untethered Soul mindfulness from obviously everyday living we, you know, a mindfulness is how we see ourself and the world around us. And gratitude, obviously, you know, being thankful for what we have, rather than seeing the glass half empty, you know, see it half full. So we live in a very fast paced, busy, uncertain world. So I hope that's come across in my writing, that ability to just, you know, be very straightforward and say, You know what things happen in life. And I took some of my business experience about change and organizational change and applied it to personal circumstances, and tried to write and, you know, with a lighter side, like a Stuart McLean sort of approach to life, who I really admire as a writer,

Amy Tyler:

I think, I think you've done that and done that well. And Ben, I wanted to ask you about accessibility, and you've written a technical book, but it is also quite access, accessible to and i You've, you're taking, you're talking about the lessons you've learned with athletes and applying it to lessons anyone could use. So could you talk about how you take, I know you have a PhD, like, how, how do you make something palatable to or understandable to a broader audience? And what kind of choices did you make?

Unknown:

That's a great question, and thanks for having me as well. With the other authors, it's really great to hear their stories, and it's an honor to be here, and I listened to both of you just speak, and I it actually ties into the answer I'm going to give you right now is, I am a scientist. I'm a technical scientist. I'm trained as a scientist, a physiologist. Just to be clear, my psychologist friends would be apt to hear that I'm calling myself a psychologist. So I do want to clarify. I'm a physiologist. Can you explain what that is? Yeah? And I'll just yeah, a physiologist. So what I do is I understand the systems of the body. That's the easiest way to describe it, that how all these different systems function together. And I had it. I had a trained expertise with regards to exercise and how they relate to exercise, whether it's the hormonal system, the cardiovascular system, the nervous system, any of the systems, and how they function together and the response to exercise. And that's my training background. So it's very scientific. We do a lot of research, but early on, even when I was when I was working in the field and learning and going through my master's degree, I always found myself working in the applied side of it. I liked the research. I loved understanding and learning, and so I had this tendency in this pull, and this gravitational pull to work in the applied area. And I kept getting told by my mentors and such like you really had a knack for being able to relate to people, to translate the knowledge base into a place that's digestible and usable. But it was really difficult to write like that, like, you know, like I've said this many times to different people, like this was probably the most challenging thing I've done in my career in a long time, to write in one voice that reached a lot of different people. And I think one of my skill sets is to be able to digest how the conversation is going with an individual and change so that it comes in a language that they're able to understand and relate to. But when you're trying to do that in a book, you really have to do it in one voice for 1000s of different people. And that was a real challenge for me. I also, you know, one of the things I said at the very outgo of the book, when my partner, Trina, and I were talking about doing this, was that I don't want to write another science book. There's so many great books out there. The science changes all the time, and what we had gotten asked a lot about and questions that we had come up to us was always about, what's your thoughts on x, or what's your opinion on Y? How would you approach this? And so really, the book was trying to create almost a structure in how I actually walk through this in any situation, whether it be with a team, an athlete, an individual. And I work primarily in sport, but I've been working a lot over the last 20 years, translating this across to different people. And one of the things that I've often seen too, and actually both you just spoke to this, is this concept of like, I actually believe we are all performers. You know, I work in high performance sport, but I see the world through a performance lens. And so when I speak to people, and I work with people, I view whatever it is they're trying to achieve as a performance. And so for someone that's not as specific as an elite athlete, you know, if it's anyone. Of us on this call, or any one of our friends or anyone that you're talking about in your books, we have to be able to perform at a level just the objectives different. We have to be able to be there for our partners or our family members or our friends. We have to be able to rise to the occasion to do stuff that's difficult, under pressure, sometimes not in the best circumstances. And that's really performance. It's not outcome based. So when we going back to the writing part of this is, how do I create that in one voice? And so honestly, the best way we decided, I tried writing and it wasn't working. And so Trina and I would go for hikes, and it happened during COVID, where she would just ask me questions, and I'd speak to her, and we'd record it, and then we go for hikes every day, because we couldn't do anything else during COVID. And we just record this. We'd re we'd bring it back, we'd put it down on paper. And over about four months, we had, you know, 50, 60,000 words that were digestible and re questioned back in a language. And obviously you go through the editing process. But that was the easiest way for me to do it, rather than because every time I sat down, it was like, Okay, what's the reference for this? What's the, you know, physiological background for this? And and that's not what I felt people were really asking for when they wanted the book. That's

Amy Tyler:

interesting that you were hiking, because that's obviously something you're very comfortable doing. So you're you're in the right zone to relay information in an authentic way.

Unknown:

Yeah, and authenticity had to be really, it was an important part for us, because it's really this field is full of, I would call it non authentic authenticity, and it doesn't mean that there's not people that really value it. But for me, I couldn't write, or I couldn't speak in a way that was, you know, marketing style, or even how we would promote the book, and the the publishers just really got frustrated with me because I wasn't going to go on social media and promote it, because I'm not It's not authentic to who I am, and it had to be authentic.

Amy Tyler:

So all of you are teachers, or have been teachers, and I wanted to ask you, I mean, Ben, you've kind of answered this, but Kelly and Jane, what have you learned through this process? Like you're obviously lifelong learners, but what, what was kind of an unexpected skill you gained, or something you learned about yourself through writing your books. Kelly, do you want to

Unknown:

start? Yeah, where do I even begin? It's funny because I teach creative nonfiction, specifically at a master's program, and they jokingly, kind of call me team trauma, because that's usually my specialty. So people are coming to me with their most deeply wounding stories and trusting me to hold those tenderly for them. I don't think I held my own sister very tenderly, often, um, frustrated with her addiction, frustrated with her decisions that I didn't want her to make. So in writing, I was really surprised, because I was also, like I said, researching it sort of from this academic perspective, how much compassion I developed, partly for her and also partly for all of us who were in this horrible situation, losing someone we loved, watching them wither and being powerless. So I studied domestic violence so that I could understand it. I spoke to psychologists, I spoke to people who worked in domestic violence shelters, young younger me was like, why don't you just walk away? Well, of course, it's not that easy. There's 900 million other factors that are going on at the same time. And then what about what about compassion? For younger me, there's kind of like an early scene that happens where my sister is by as a kite, and we're trying to buy something for my parents for Christmas, and I'm trying to, just like, get her going. She is a shell of a human, and all I can do is be angry about my big, important military job and the fact that my sister is not kind of complying with what I want. Instead of looking at her pain, I've grown as a instructor, as a as a person, um, with tenderness. That's been a big gift. I think of this book, I have cried at every interview I have done about this book, like every single one. So I'm not gonna lie, it's not the first time, but

Amy Tyler:

that's good. That's what, yeah, hoping for. I know it's like, no, but. And I sent you a note on the side, and one of the things I was really moved by was, and I think a lot of times when I work with writers, is, I think we all have a tendency. Easy to protect. You know, if you're writing a personal story, but the thing is, is that the love shown through because you didn't do that is it's just so honest. So

Unknown:

I always said too, that the greatest feat of this book was to take something so ugly, so many years of ugly, and to squeeze some beauty out of that. And that can only be done really by taking it, taking something and really like turning it up to the light and looking at it from different angles. And that angle often has to not be your own. There was so I like to think I made something beautiful out of it. You did, Jane, what about you? I agree. I agree with you. I mean, the first point in my journey was that I had a very traumatic injury. I was slammed in the head with a volleyball at a sporting event. And it wasn't my fault. It was just, it just happened. I wasn't playing. I was a spectator sitting where I was supposed to be sitting. So that was, like, huge. It just boom, my life just changed forever. And I might might, thankfully, I've with a lot of, you know, help from a speech pathologist, you know, and a lot of really purposeful, mindful living and new habits, I got through that. So it's a miracle, you know, it's a miracle that I'm actually as comfortable as I am speaking. I couldn't do that. I couldn't I couldn't talk. I used to talk for a living, and, you know, for five or six years, you know, it took me a lot of time to get my confidence back. And I really, you know, as I say in my writing, I learned, I learned, there's a there's a going back to kindergarten, there's a quote by Winnie the Pooh, you're braver than you think, right? I thought, wow, you know, look what I can accomplish. And it said, you know, I learned that good things can come from not so good things. I really never set out in my life to say, Oh, I'm going to write a book, you know, I'm going to be an author. Like it was never my Oh, my goodness, I love to read. I was an avid reader. My goodness, I read all the Nancy Drew books and all kinds of, you know, great, popular, you know, writers when I was younger. However, my gosh, I just, you know, I just finished it, you know, I just finished a children's book, you know, a debut children's book. I have a service dog. I would have never had that share come into my life, my service dog who's trained for hearing alerts, if that hadn't happened. So, you know, the past is just a chapter, not the whole book. And I thought, you know, like Kelly, I did a lot of, you know, soul searching and researching. And when people go through life changing events, we all often look for meaning, like, why, why did this happen? And you really can, you know, you're really in a fork in the road. Sometimes, I mean, you know, it's either Okay, I'm gonna go off and and just, you know, figure this out. And some times people never can figure it out, and they, they continue down that path. Or it's, it's like, Okay, I gotta figure this out. This is not a good thing. I'm going to go through the the stages of grief or loss my own way. And my way was, OMG, but then what's next? You know? And I guess I thought, okay, if I can, I saw a lot of a lot of people that needed that in, you know, hospitals when I was recovering and my partner was recovering. So I thought, you know, if I can turn this into something good, where I can take my knowledge and wisdom so everything I learned by looking back, Sonia Kika belt has a quote, life is often understood best, you know, moving forward, you know, rather than backward, or moving backward rather than forward. So looking at where I was, looking how far I come, and saying, My goodness, all of the things that I've done, the teaching, the speaking, the writing, working, you know, working with people with disabilities, my own injury, you know, helping my partner. You know, working, you know, all of the the professional, personal experience being a parent, it all. It all led into, you know, where I am today, and I just sort of pulled it all together. And, you know, tried to say, this is a bowl of cherries, you know, not a and took a lemon and made lemonade. So

Amy Tyler:

it sounds like, in ways, some of it, you were all of you, maybe, but you were writing a bit for yourself, but that is the gift you're giving to everybody else. So I wanted to conclude by talking about Canada. And this is not a political podcast, by the way, but it seems like when you mentioned Canada now it is. Now, what's interesting about these awards is they're not anyone can win the awards. You don't have to be Canadian. But what's Canadian about them is that they're judged by Canadian readers. Years. So we do, I do have a number of listeners that are American and from other parts of the world, and can lit or Canadian literature can have a little bit of a negative connotation at times that it's often super well written, but isn't necessarily fun always. And the I think the purpose of these awards, it's a bit broader, you know, trying to capture, I think, all types of readers. But I just wanted to know it just so happens all three of you are Canadian. What would you say is, is there anything, if at all, uniquely Canadian about your books that you've produced. And also the second question to that is, obviously, as a small country, you want to tailor your content for a broad audience, did you kind of have to tailor something other than you know, maybe not adding re or ou into your language? But I was just curious about that as well. So let's start with Ben, what about you?

Unknown:

Well, yeah, sure, I think it's a great question. And absolutely, my experiences are with Canadians top performers as a whole. So there's a huge Canadian component to this. And I think there's a couple of messages, I'd say, from that most of my experiences through the Olympic Games, representing Canada and working with Canadians who are doing their best to put Canada on the international stage. But I think the thing that's really compelling about being Canadian, sometimes, as Canadians, we have this sort of, let's sit back a little bit as a mentality of, you know, we're not really boastful about what we do, or we're sort of the quiet country that's always apologetic and and I think the one of the things, if to your question specifically, is that all these incredible high performers are Canadians. You know, we have so many. And when I say high performance, it's not just about those that win. It's about those that commit. It's those who strive to be their best and live their best lives in the way that they can. It's those who strive to be incredible parents or surgeons or first responders or it doesn't really matter. But these stories are all from Canadians and so these lessons are all from likewise, citizens of our country that I think we sometimes are quiet about as Canadians. So I think there's a definite, strong Canadian component to my book, and with the lessons out of it,

Amy Tyler:

what about you? Kelly?

Unknown:

I mean, I'm a veteran in the Canadian Armed Forces, you will pry my Canadiana out of my cold, dead hands. However, I and I'm a fourth generation soldier in my family, my husband is in the military, but that said, grief and and loss are universal, and it's my first book, which was about being in the military really only published in Canada because it was very much a specific audience. Whereas my second book has published here in the US with Penguin. And I mean, at least in Canada, in the writing world, I have colleagues and friends. Whereas down here I am very I, because I currently live in the US. I am a very small fry and and I I just miss it. So I feel like I will never want to lose that part of myself. It's funny, because I am writing a thriller right now, and it is very encouraged to switch your location to a US or international location to sell it, and I'm a little less precious about it, but, I mean, I write non fiction, so I can't really change my location. I was definitely influenced by the environment, by the medical system that happens in Canada. That's very different. But you can't, you know, can't make it up. So it was what it was.

Amy Tyler:

So where is it going to be set? Your thriller?

Unknown:

It's going to be set where I live right now. Oh, interesting, which is I'm in Utica, New York, which is very steel town, very, yeah, it's funny. It was originally set in Peterborough, and they are very similar. They really remind me of one another. So it was actually a really easy switch. But, you know, sometimes it's a business, sometimes it's your heart on the page. Those are kind of different things that go that don't always go hand in hand.

Amy Tyler:

What about you? Jane,

Unknown:

well, again, great question. And thank you, Kelly, free to you and your family for your service. I mean, wow. If there was ever a time where we all needed to feel safe and secure, you know. And. Reserve, you know, good, good, healthy living. It's now. So thank you. Thank you for that freedom that that you've provided over the years, and you and your family and your husband are now, and freedom of choice, I and in terms of being Canadian, I mean, I in both my, you know, all of my books, my, you know, I always have written in Canada and reference Canadian destinations. I'm, I'm, you know, I've been a world traveler. But I also chose a James jam to talk about Terry Fox. He's one of my heroes. And growing up, I can remember living in Hamilton, Ontario, and watching him come to Hamilton and run through and I looked at my my parents, and I said, Well, what's what? Wow. Like, how can you do that? And, like, what's, you know? Because, of course, I was just like, 10 or 11. I was little and didn't really understand what a prosthesis was, and, and my mom just said, Well, you know, what he's doing is incredible. It's a miracle. It's a miracle that he's even doing this. So, you know, I talk about, I have a story. I tell the Terry Fox story. I don't tell it in its entirety, but I do speak about the influence that one can have. You know, sharing their stories and looking at the upside. I mean, he is a Canadian that is iconic, and has changed the world, you know, with his legacy and his family. And really, I believe, brought us together as a country, and brought the world together, you know, with Terry Fox runs. I mean, we, it doesn't matter if you're living in, you know, the US or Canada or Australia, Terry Fox runs are universal now, and what a wonderful thing. And that's that, to me, is, is Canadian? We all, we all, I agree with Ben. We can be too apologetic sometimes and apologize for things we shouldn't. But you know what? At the heart of it, we're great people, and we've done some great things around the world and in our own country. And so I really tried to celebrate his life, and that was my, you know, and talk about things, you know, growing up that were meaningful to me. So hopefully that answers your question. We make some pretty great books too. Yeah, I am really thankful to the Canadian book club awards, and it has expanded. Because honestly, when I I was very I'm very grateful. I also wanted a Book Club Award in 2022 for butter side up, which I'm very thankful for. And at that time, you could only be Canadian to eat, and so they, they've modified it, and they've opened it up. So I think again, that's that's a very wonderful aspect of Canadian living, is that we're very kind, we're very kind hearted people, and we're very inclusive. So I think that the whole award speaks to that, and I'm very grateful to have you. Amy, oh, thank you to help us all celebrate. So

Amy Tyler:

thank you. Well, that's that's all I have today. And you know what? I have to thank all of you. Because I was a little bit hesitant. I was like, how am I going to juggle all these people? And it actually was really fun, and I love that, the interplay and the natural just back and forth. So thank you for that. Anyway. Thank you so much, and I appreciate it. So I

Unknown:

can't wait to read everyone's books. I have to dash because I'm into a book club, they will not care about me. They only ever want to talk about my husband.

Amy Tyler:

I must go. Okay. So

Unknown:

nice to meet everybody. So much. Thanks, so much. Thanks. Amy. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. It's great. Happy Summer, everybody. Bye, bye, bye.

Amy Tyler:

So thanks so much to Ben, Jean and Kelly for a great discussion. We kind of had it all. We had some laughs, a few tears, and surprisingly, you know that last question I threw in about Canadian Heritage, I didn't expect the answers that I got, and that was really lovely. And as a dual citizen, I was raised the United States, but I've lived in Canada a very long time. I just thought that was really beautiful and very well said. So the three books we talked about today were output by Ben Spore, James jam, by Jane Enright, and still I cannot save you, by Kelly S Thompson. And be sure to check out the show notes if you want links to either applying for the Canadian book club awards, or being a verified reader, that sounds kind of fun. So thanks so much for listening, and I'll be back in a few more weeks with another group of authors from the Canadian book club awards, and we'll have another discussion. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I'll talk with you later. You.