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Personal Background / The Cure for Death by Lightning
Here Anderson-Dargatz, 33, talks about her life, love and writing.
"When I was writing The Cure For Death by Lightning, I made my home on Vancouver Island, in Errington (near Coombs, the place with the goats on the roof, near Parksville). My husband Floyd was working as a dairy herdsman and that meant he took care of herd health, milked cows (no, they don't do that by hand anymore), and inseminated cows (with bull sperm, from a tube). Floyd made his living as a cattleman near Wetaskiwin, Alberta until we met at university in 1989, so working for someone else is difficult for him. We now have our own farm near Wetaskiwin, Alberta, close to where Floyd grew up. Floyd is now working for me as researcher and office staff, though he still keeps a herd of beef cattle. We still live cheaply but writing is now taking up all our time. I write full-time and help Floyd out on the farm when he needs help. He's still recovering from the brain surgery he had last year. Well, we're both still recovering from that one. He's fine now, just easily tired (it wasn't cancer). I'm doing some writing about that experience in my next novel, which I'll finish next spring. I've just finished off a creative writing degree at the University of Victoria. Floyd and I met at the university, in the cafeteria. Things went their natural course and that fall I asked Floyd to marry me, on campus, in a cow suit (the joke among our friends was that with Floyd, the only thing I had to be jealous of was cow M19, Floyd's favorite cow.) Before Floyd, I worked at the Salmon Arm Observer as a reporter, photographer and so-so cartoonist for several years in my early 20s.
"My parents are Eric and Irene Anderson. I was born late to them; my mother was 37 at the time. I have four much older sisters. Eric is quite elderly; he's just turned 82. He was a sheep farmer in the days when one could still take herds of 500 or 1000 sheep down the highway and up into the hills. My mother is where I get my writing from. She writes for local papers, historical journals, the United Church Observer, seniors' publications and the like. Much of The Cure For Death by Lightning came from her. Much of her life has been magical and a little hard to believe. She was struck by lightning as a girl. She did see ghostly, judging figures in her home. She had premonitions (one profound one involving her brother's death that I'm using in my next novel, A Recipe For Bees.) I have a newspaper clipping she wrote from the 1950's where my father found a clump of buttercups growing in the deep snow on a mountain slope in mid-winter (likely it sat over uranium deposits, but it's magic nevertheless). She gave me the ability to see magic and I have great respect for her.
"Much of my own childhood was magical. I had invisible playmates; my mother tells me that she had to regularly set a place at the table for one of them. I have no memory of this either, but I do know that I have inherited my mother's ability for, ahem, enlarging the truth, so take these stories as you will. My maternal grandmother died the year I was born so I got to know her through her scrapbooks and this, of course, is the basis for The Cure For Death By Lightning. Many if not most, of the recipes in the novel are from my grandmother's scrapbooks. I'm a great scrapbook keeper myself. They're a form of diary."
[BCBW 1997]
"When I was writing The Cure For Death by Lightning, I made my home on Vancouver Island, in Errington (near Coombs, the place with the goats on the roof, near Parksville). My husband Floyd was working as a dairy herdsman and that meant he took care of herd health, milked cows (no, they don't do that by hand anymore), and inseminated cows (with bull sperm, from a tube). Floyd made his living as a cattleman near Wetaskiwin, Alberta until we met at university in 1989, so working for someone else is difficult for him. We now have our own farm near Wetaskiwin, Alberta, close to where Floyd grew up. Floyd is now working for me as researcher and office staff, though he still keeps a herd of beef cattle. We still live cheaply but writing is now taking up all our time. I write full-time and help Floyd out on the farm when he needs help. He's still recovering from the brain surgery he had last year. Well, we're both still recovering from that one. He's fine now, just easily tired (it wasn't cancer). I'm doing some writing about that experience in my next novel, which I'll finish next spring. I've just finished off a creative writing degree at the University of Victoria. Floyd and I met at the university, in the cafeteria. Things went their natural course and that fall I asked Floyd to marry me, on campus, in a cow suit (the joke among our friends was that with Floyd, the only thing I had to be jealous of was cow M19, Floyd's favorite cow.) Before Floyd, I worked at the Salmon Arm Observer as a reporter, photographer and so-so cartoonist for several years in my early 20s.
"My parents are Eric and Irene Anderson. I was born late to them; my mother was 37 at the time. I have four much older sisters. Eric is quite elderly; he's just turned 82. He was a sheep farmer in the days when one could still take herds of 500 or 1000 sheep down the highway and up into the hills. My mother is where I get my writing from. She writes for local papers, historical journals, the United Church Observer, seniors' publications and the like. Much of The Cure For Death by Lightning came from her. Much of her life has been magical and a little hard to believe. She was struck by lightning as a girl. She did see ghostly, judging figures in her home. She had premonitions (one profound one involving her brother's death that I'm using in my next novel, A Recipe For Bees.) I have a newspaper clipping she wrote from the 1950's where my father found a clump of buttercups growing in the deep snow on a mountain slope in mid-winter (likely it sat over uranium deposits, but it's magic nevertheless). She gave me the ability to see magic and I have great respect for her.
"Much of my own childhood was magical. I had invisible playmates; my mother tells me that she had to regularly set a place at the table for one of them. I have no memory of this either, but I do know that I have inherited my mother's ability for, ahem, enlarging the truth, so take these stories as you will. My maternal grandmother died the year I was born so I got to know her through her scrapbooks and this, of course, is the basis for The Cure For Death By Lightning. Many if not most, of the recipes in the novel are from my grandmother's scrapbooks. I'm a great scrapbook keeper myself. They're a form of diary."
[BCBW 1997]
Submitted on August 13, 2003 in By David.
