BOOK CLUB Cassie Stocks: The Power of Laughter
Cassie Stocks’ personality emanates the same joviality and wit as the content of her award-winning breakout novel, Dance, Gladys, Dance. The novel, published by NeWest Press, was awarded the 2013 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, a cash prize and formal acknowledgement of excellence in Canadian comic literature. Stocks spent the better part of this past June in constant transit for interviews, book signings and meetings. I was able to connect with her following her return home to Eston, Saskatchewan, a small town with a population only slightly exceeding one thousand. Even after receiving the Leacock medal and managing the resulting flurry of media attention, Stocks was clear she had no intentions of transitioning her life to an urban centre. “You won’t find me in Toronto!” she exclaimed. “It’s been refreshing to come home and find out what’s happened [in Eston] while I was away. I really identify with small town living; it suits me just fine.” Stocks, who grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, spent most of her summers in Saskatchewan, as both her parents are native residents of the province. She said she knew she would one day call Saskatchewan her home and described Eston as precisely the slow-paced, kind-hearted space she’d been looking for. Stocks enjoys a laid-back lifestyle and holds employment as a cashier at the local grocery store.
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FOR SASKATCHEWAN WOMEN | VOL. 2 ISSUE 7, JULY 2013
by Jessica Reimer
According to Stocks, long before she received the national award the town’s response has been one of love, pride and support. “The customers at the Co-op have been great. They buy my book and bring it through the till for me to sign. I’ve had many wonderful book talks… at least until the next customer in line arrives,” she remarked. “My friends and family know how hard I’ve been working on my writing and they are so pleased to see that hard work pay off.” When asked to provide advice to aspiring Saskatchewan authors, Stocks offered a clear message: “My number one piece of advice is to actually write. Don’t just think or talk about it, but physically put your butt in your chair and do it.” Her own writing routine is regimented, with at least one hour each morning reserved strictly for writing. “Even though life can sometimes get in the way, I’ve been successful at meeting almost all my goals,” she said. “Sometimes I aim for a thousand words a day, so many chapters by the end of the month and so forth. The structure helps to keep me on track.” Stocks’ novel follows Freida Zweig, a 27-year-old hailing from Kindersley, Saskatchewan, at a crossroads between her passion for painting – the career she never followed – and the disheartening probability of having to dispel that dream in search of a “real” job and a “normal” life. As fate would have it, a classified ad in the local paper connects her to Gladys, an elderly woman who, too, gave up on a dream of one day becoming a dancer. The