Kerry DeLorey
Miriam Toews’ Encaenia Address
Miriam Toews receives her honorary degree at Encaenia 2010.
We don’t usually re-print the messages our Honorary Degree recipients share with new grads at Encaenia. However, award-winning writer Miriam Toews (The Flying Troutmans, Swing Low: A Life) shared an honest, witty and moving account of her life as a King’s journalism student, and it embodies the theme of exploration and adaptation that this issue has sought to convey. We hope you enjoy Ms. Toews’ words as much as we did. 30
Tidings | summer 2010
I’m a novelist. I write fiction. And so I’d like to tell you a story of my time here at King’s, which was way back in 1990/91. I’ll tell you this story because there were two very important things that I learned during my time here and I’d like to share them with you. I was twenty five years old and had moved here from Winnipeg with my partner and our kids who were three years old and three months old. The plan was that I’d do a one year degree program in journalism, which I did, but not without a struggle. I was so nervous in the first term. Just to convey to you exactly how nervous I was: There was a banner over the entrance to J-school that read A DEADLINE IS NOT A SUGGESTION and it literally scared the crap out of me. Every morning I’d say goodbye to my family and make the long walk from North Halifax to King’s. As I walked my stomach would twist itself into knots and I’d have to run into this little grocery store on the other side of the commons and ask to use the bathroom. The woman who ran the store didn’t speak much english and I spoke none of her language but over time we developed
an unspoken arrangement. She seemed to understand my anxiety and my need to use her washroom, which wasn’t technically available for customers, every morning on my way to school. At one point in the school year we were so broke we couldn’t pay our electricity bill. I had casually mentioned this to a classmate of mine and he told me that there was a fund at King’s that existed to help poor students out. It wasn’t a lot of money but it was there. I couldn’t believe it. I went to the secretary and explained my dilemma and she said okay, how much is the bill? I told her what it was, about a hundred bucks, and the next day she had a cheque, or maybe cash, I can’t remember, and we paid our bill. I learned that not all institutions are created equal. That it is possible to get help when you need it, when you ask for it, no strings attached. Thank you, King’s, for your trust and compassion. The second vitally important thing I learned at King’s I learned from a professor of mine named Ian Wiseman. Tall, thin, bald, passionate about the truth, laid back, and often laughing. He was a poet and he brought