Plum Johnson with fellow Memories into Story II student Jayne Townsend at a post-course gathering.
In March of this year, Plum Johnson won the coveted RBC Taylor Prize for literary nonfiction for her bestselling memoir, They Left Us Everything.
Plum was a participant in my advanced memoir course Memories into Story II (UofT SCS; online) at the time Penguin Canada published her book in 2014. Of course her instructor (that’s me) and classmates were extremely proud of her then, and prouder still when she took home the RBC Taylor Prize. It’s been fun to follow her success. Plum quickly gained popularity as a speaker at literary events and a guest of book clubs across the country (she often visits via Skype).
Of her book, the RBC Taylor Prize jury wrote:
“[The story is] beautifully observed and written with great warmth and wit. They Left Us Everything is an absorbing memoir of grief, growth, and decluttering. Plum Johnson must deal not merely with the legacy of her difficult, ill-matched parents, but is handed the burden of disposing of the seemingly endless contents of their 23-room Lake Ontario home, which becomes a character on its own in the telling. The task, which she initially thinks manageable, proves Herculean, far more complex than she’d imagined, involving understanding her past and packing up its contents, both literal and metaphorical. A story of love, loss, and legacy, written with compassion and humour, it subtly evokes T.S. Eliot’s lines: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
I’ll be following up with a longer interview with Plum soon, but for now, in response to a couple of questions, here are her inspiring replies:
How did winning the Taylor Prize change the way you perceive your writing career and where you may go with it?
I’ve been writing all my life, but I never thought my voice could be worth anything. This prize has changed that. It’s the best affirmation. It’s like they’ve given me a wide-open gate and asked me to charge right through it … zero to sixty, in three seconds!
How does it feel to be a role model as the first woman to win this award in more than ten years and at the age of 68?
It shows that old age means nothing! We don’t have to feel “invisible.” There are some things you can’t write until you’re older — things that take a lifetime to assess. Women’s lives will always be interrupted — more like a spiral than a linear path — so it may take us longer to get where we’re going, but our voices are crucial: perhaps even sharper at the end.
Do visit Plum’s fabulous website, which includes tips for creating a Memory Book. You can listen to Plum read a chapter of her memoir here.