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Interview of Alma Lee : Interview
Description
August 20 2004
Alma Stark Lee.
Born: (Edinburgh, May 1940). She has two brothers: Graeme/Graham (Edinburgh; married with children and grandchildren; was an accountant and then a teacher of business admin at Napier College, Edinburgh); Gordon (just outside Aberdeen; married with children and grandchildren; sold pharmaceutical drugs)
Father: Alan Graeme/Graham Stark (Balerno, January 10 1900). 2 brothers, 3 sisters (only remembers 2 sisters: Nelly and Jean). His father, Neil Stark, worked for the forestry and made violins. Alan was a bagpipe maker for John Glen. He also played them and taught other people to play. He also composed (for example, he composed a piece for Lady Vivian Younger of the Younger Brewery). He was involved with the Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band – he became pipe major. She remembers him piping at Waverley train station when her family boarded the train en-route to go to Australia; “it was like being in a movie”. She’s not too sure why her parents moved to Australia. It might have had something to do with her mother having a mid-life crisis. It might have also due to her father’s ailing health, as he suffered badly from the cold. He died in Australia. He was a self-taught Gaelic speaker. He probably got interested through his enthusiasm for the pipes and his work with the Highland Piobaireachd. He didn't compete, but played at functions, such as Burns Nights. He taught the pipes at Loretto and Fettes College, Edinburgh. Her dad took her every Friday at the library, so reading has been a big part of her life since a little girl. When she was a teen, she was obsessed with adventure WWII Stories. She also read a lot of the Classics.
Education: She Sciennes School, Edinburgh. The headmistress, Mrs Henderson, was a little like “Miss Jean Broadie”. She then went to Boroughmuir Secondary. Her English teacher taught the Classics and gave her an interest in Scottish writers such as Stevenson, Scott, Burns, but didn’t teach more modern Scottish writers such as MacDiarmid, Gibbon, and Gunn. She didn’t go to university because he got married soon after high-school.
Her (ex)husband, David Lee, whom she met in high-school, was a lighting engineer for the BBC and then Scottish television.
Mother: Margaret Dick (“Peggy”) Robertson. 1 of 13 kids – 3rd youngest sister. Grandparents were dairy farmers. Alma went to live with these grandparents when war was on (1940-45). Her grandfather was an alcoholic up until his 40s. He was a great reader of Zane Gray novels. He drove a horse-drawn milk-cart.
Why did they leave for Canada? Simple: her husband was bored! But it was also due to a sense of adventure. But they were worse off in Canada than in Scotland: her husband had to restart his career all over again. She was fascinated with Canada while in Scotland. Her father had a friend in Toronto and he would send a calendar every year. She really liked what she saw and it obviously stayed in her mind – big and beautiful scenery. Advertisements for job prospects in Canada in newspapers and posters also had a big impact. Furthermore, the Canadian government gave them an interest-free loan as an incentive to emigrate. They moved to Toronto first. Her first job was for the Olvery Underwood Corporation; she worked in sales and marketing. She then moved into the city and started working in the Arts. She got work in the theatre at the St Lawrence Centre for the Arts (now called the Hummingbird Centre). She stayed there for 2 years and then worked for the Ontario Arts Council in the choir administration department. She then thought about becoming a literary agent. She had a friend in the film business who was working with Margaret Atwood at the time. She managed to meet Atwood who gave her two points advice about getting a foot into the literary world: 1. Get job in publishing house; 2. Go to lots of parties. She then got a job through Atwood with an agent in New York working for Anansi Press, which represented up-and-coming writers such as Atwood, Graeme Gibson, and Michael Ondantjee. She was also founding executive director of the Writers Union (funded by membership dues) at a very exciting time in Canadian literature. But her marriage started to disintegrate at this point; there is not a lot of money starting out as a writer's agent. She was an agent for a couple of years and then went full-time at the Union. She negotiated a standard contract between writers and publishers. She then founded the Writer's Trust (mainly funded by private and corporate donations) – an organization that could take in donations for writers. Her first project was to create a series of 10 guides of Canadian literature for schools across Canada. She then went into the film business working for Universal as a liaison between Toronto and Los Angeles. However, She says this was “big mistake”. She found it full of self-indulgent, self-centred people. She was hired mainly due to her connections with writers. Having said that, she enjoyed looking at and developing scripts. She stayed in this job for 6 years. She then moved to Vancouver – she just wanted “vistas”! She wanted to be near the sea again; Lake Ontario “didn't cut it”. She arrived in 1984 with a view of getting a job at Expo, but she ended up staying in Powell River for a year. In Vancouver, she worked at National Book Week and then for the Federal Government as a project officer. She then worked as a manager at the Judith Marquis Dance Company before dreaming up the Vancouver International Writer's Festival and became Artistic Director. She is also on the BC Arts Council and The Granville Island Trust.
She has received the Commemorative Medal from the Queen's Silver, Gold, and Jubilee.
When asked about Scottish writers at the Festival, she talks about being impressed with Andrew Greig, an Orkney writer, who came to the Festival in 2003. Janice Galloway and Liz Lochead were also favourites. For example, she remembers loving one reading by Janice Galloway's in particular which was accompanied with piano music. Irvine Welsh was another one who came along that she liked. She also enjoyed having Ian Rankin and Val McDermid speak at the Festival. She has never had James Kelman or Alan Warner because, supposedly, they are “divas”: that is, they wanted to fly first class and stay in the nicest hotels, regardless of whether or not they (Alma and her Festival crew) could afford it. When talking about the future of Scottish Literature, she believes the “Trainspotting”, “urban-grit” edge of Scottish literature is passing, although there will still be a “dark-edge” to its literature, such as that evident in Rankin's novels.
When asked about whether or not she has any feelings of Scottishness in Canada, she says that, because she was born, raised, and educated in Scotland, she does feel slightly “Scottish”. But she is also proud of being a Canadian. She has a “familiar” feeling when she returns to Scotland; she feels very strongly at home in Edinburgh – she has links with the Edinburgh Book Festival organizers and the Scottish Arts Council.
Keywords: Edinburgh; bagpipes; arts; Toronto; Vancouver