Local author highlights fourth annual Parts for the Arts

Arts info speed dating

“We did it as a speed dating format,” she explained. “People had a few minutes at each table as an opportunity to talk to organizations from around the province. The goal is specifically is to help artists be successful.”

The idea was for each participant to gather information about what those organizations do, the grants they offer, the workshops they put on, so they can take it back to their own groups in the city or use it for themselves personally.

This year’s theme was ‘creating your own opportunities.’

“As artists it’s hard because you really have to be self-motivated and if you want to be successful you have to get really creative,” she said. “We want to show people what resources there are to help them facilitate creating your own opportunities, so we wanted to have a very laid back kind of casual feel to it to encourage people to really have open conversations.”

She added it is one of the best turnouts they’ve had in years.

The participants of the Parts for the Arts event at the EA Rawlinson Centre for the Arts on Saturday. Author Mary-Ann Kirkby is seated front left, next to Adreanna Boucher. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

After the discussion tables there was an inspirational presentation from keynote speaker, local author Mary-Ann Kirkby, who wrote two national best-selling books, I Am Hutterite and Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen.

When Kirkby was 10 years old, she said in her speech, she and her family left their Hutterite colony near Portage la Prairie in Manitoba to start a new life. She said her life got turned upside down because she loved her life on the colony. It was hard to adapt to life outside and get used to the culture because of the misconceptions people had of Hutterites. She said when she left the colony, she wanted to forget about everything associated with it.

“It was immensely difficult because we lived a very closed life but it was very rich where here we weren’t used to the pop culture that everybody follows; we follow our own heart beats, we followed our own creative spirit, and our traditions and they were beautiful,” she said. “But they had no value in mainstream society.”

Inspirational tale of self-publishing

When she was 18 years old, she decided she wanted to be a news reporter and won awards for telling other people’s stories.

Once she married her husband Gordon Kirkby, she said she had to find something else for her creative mind due to her husband being in politics.

Kirkby suffered from depression in her twenties and turning to literature helped her. Then she decided to write her own book because memories of living on the Hutterite colony were still there.

“I was kind of living a double life and I was a journalist at the time, but I didn’t ever tell anyone I was Hutterite,” Kirkby told paNOW. “So I wasn’t fully living in a way that would make one proud of their cultural heritage and I think eventually that got to me and I didn’t know quite how to connect myself as being a Hutterite person and also being an English person.”

She said she received numerous rejection letters until she took the leap to self-publish her book, I Am Hutterite. It instantly became a national best seller.

Despite those rejections she kept at it but noted the challenges of self-publishing because there’s little media coverage. It’s all word of mouth.

“It was like a prairie grass fire; word of mouth is exactly how it happened,” she said. “It was people telling each other ‘did you read that book? You’ve got to read that book.’”

“That’s exactly how it happened, as simple as that. It just kept growing. Eventually you get calls and it’s Walmart calling, Costco calling, those are the wonderful surprises along the way.”

Despite the challenges, she sold over 150,000 copies. After she wrote her next book. Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen, she recalled how all those companies who had previously rejected her suddenly wanted to publish her.

Her second book is an up-close look at Hutterite life today. She added she wrote both books because she is proud of who she is and where she came from and how it’s important to embrace your culture.

She is currently working on a third book.

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ian.gustafson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @iangustafson12

by Ian Gustafson

Local author highlights fourth annual Parts for the Arts

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