Aritha van Herk

by

Wade Bell

This piece originally appeared in The Typescript

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Aritha and I last met as we were leaving Shelf Life Books in Calgary after a reading. We hadn’t talked in years but we constructed a street corner conversation as if continuing one from the moment before. She’d read my latest book, she said. First lady of Calgary letters, a writer and scholar whose body of work is rivalled by few, mentor to several students who have gone on to have literary careers, Aritha finds time to keep up with Albertans’ writing.

I knew she liked my work. On the strength of my slim first book of stories she found a phone number for me. I was out of town working. Getting back, I discovered a message inviting me to the inaugural meeting of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.

The meeting was held in an office in Edmonton’s warehouse district. Executives elected and our business concluded, we found ourselves in a nearby strip club. I don’t know which pied piper among us engineered that escapade but I think I can guess. Anyway, for a posse of writers, watching two nude ladies contorting together on an intimate stage proved to be a lesson in fiction as dance.

Oh, and I remember the Porsche. The famous Porsche. “Novel One” was the tag, wasn’t it? Her novel one, Judith, had captured the huge Seal prize. I once saw her driving that sleek speedster around Calgary. She was already a legend.

I don’t think I ever thanked her for including my stories in the anthologies she edited so I do so now.

Little does Aritha know but we may have a slender connection going back to childhood. Growing up in Edberg, AB, she would have been familiar with the charms of the village’s general store. That emporium belonged to my aunt and uncle. As a wee one visiting from Edmonton, I recall thinking that it was a very big place with many cans of different sizes. The cash register dinging and a number popping up behind a glass pane brought laughter from me so my uncle made it happen over and over. I imagine Aritha knew that magic well.

Edberg is a microdot on the prairie. Revered acts come from prairie microdots. Joni Mitchell, kd lang, Buffy Sainte-Marie. Rock bands hated or loved. Aritha van Herk.